


Sea Flowers

by 27dragons, tisfan



Series: Nights in Sandbridge [16]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Annoying Brothers, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Background Steve/Nat, Dating, F/M, Getting Together, Penis In Vagina Sex, Racism, Sex, background Bucky/Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 16:57:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15320022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Wanda’s anxiety makes it hard for her to maintain a romantic relationship. Sam’s been too occupied with his own PTSD and family to even think about long-term dating. But maybe they’ll find a way to make it work -- if Peter doesn’t manage to sabotage their budding romance.





	1. Chapter 1

Peter slid to the floor, leaning against the wall next to Wanda’s closet. He let his head tip backward until he was looking up at the mosaic art that Wanda had painstakingly glued to the ceiling a few summers ago. She’d put it there specifically to give him -- and her -- something to look at.

“What happened?” Peter managed to never sound exasperated with her, which Wanda knew had to take some doing. She was such a disaster, everyone eventually got tired of her. She wasn’t worth saving. She couldn’t be saved, there was nothing there to salvage.

She knew Peter would argue with her if she started voicing those thoughts and she clamped her hands over her ears as if she could shut out the voices that she knew were only inside her head. She wanted to grab huge handfuls of her hair and yank on it, let the pain center her, ground her, or at least _distract_ her. Peter would stop her, would probably make her take one of her pills, and in her better moments she knew that he _should_.

But she hated the pills, hated feeling dependent on them, hated everything about it, and in that moment she hated her brother for coming home from work early and finding her like this. Again.

That spark of resentment raced through her, lighting everything inside her on fire. She opened her eyes and all she could see was red mist. “Leave me alone!”

She didn’t want to be this way. She never wanted to hate Peter, not the way she hated herself, but she couldn’t help it. There was a calm, rational part of her mind staring at everything, aghast, wondering what she was doing, but it was surrounded by the red mist, surrounded by anger and fear, and she couldn’t get out, _couldn’t get out_.

“There’s no pasta sauce,” Wanda confessed.

She was so stupid, she’d just assumed there would be. Both she and Peter were food hoarders, with a cupboard full of jars and cans and two separate stand-alone freezers because they’d filled one of them and rather than sorting it out, they’d just gotten another for the overflow. Wanda didn’t like other people seeing their kitchen and their oversized pantry full of food because people started looking at them strangely, like they were building a bomb shelter in their basement or something. Which couldn’t happen because they lived no more than five hundred yards away from the sound, and digging would only end up with a hole full of brackish water. Wanda knew that. Most of her garden plants were in suspended pots sitting on top of wooden flats just so they wouldn’t die of the salt.

“Okay,” Peter said calmly. “Did you start the pasta boiling?”

Wanda nodded. She’d gotten the spaghetti going, put the strainer in the sink. Tossed some frozen meatballs in the microwave, and then gone to get sauce and couldn’t find any. She started taking things out of the pantry, slowly at first, to see if she could see pasta sauce lurking in the back somewhere, and then faster as she didn’t see it until she was frantic with fear.

And the timer had gone off for the pasta, which made things worse.

She kept looking. She wasn’t sure how long she had spent digging through the cans and boxes and jars. Wasn’t certain if she’d started throwing things in her panic.

The smoke detector had gone off and she’d screamed. Tore the battery out. Thrown the pot of smoking pasta into the sink and fled to the bedroom to cower in the back of the closet.

“Are you hurt?”

Her leg itched. Wanda put a hand to it, drew back. There was blood trickling down her calf.

“Mighta cut myself,” she admitted, her voice coming out hoarse and choked.

“Okay, okay, come on out, Raggedy Anne,” Peter told her. He held out one hand to her, and she made some effort to unfold, to expose her face, to look up and risk--

_Peter has never hit you._

The truth of the matter was that she’d only ever once been hit, but she still feared it like nothing else. One beating had been enough to cow her for the rest of her life. Her uncle had…

She crawled out of the closet. Being in the open room seemed dangerous, somehow.

“Lemme see this cut,” Peter asked, and she shifted. Wanda wasn’t sure where it’d come from, but it was long and jagged and ran from her knee down, about six inches long. “Ow.”

“Hmmm.” Wanda agreed.

“I’m gonna take care of you,” Peter told her.

“You shouldn’t have to,” Wanda mumbled, hiding her face again.

“Hey, no.” Peter pulled her into an embrace and she gratefully buried her face in his shirt. He smelled like flowers and green, growing things, and potting soil. They were good smells. “No, no, it’s okay. I want to.” He lifted her, and it always astonished her how strong her brother was. He carried her down the hall and into the tiny common use bathroom and sat her down on the lid of the toilet. Peter didn't like her bathroom, even smaller and filled with her makeup.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Wanda said, covering her face again. She hissed as Peter blotted at her leg with a washcloth.

“I’m not angry,” Peter told her. “But I think you might need to go up to the clinic. This looks bad, it’s all clotted now, but I think if I clean it, it might start bleeding again.”

Wanda looked up at Peter. “What’s the story?”

Because they always had to have a story, they had to agree what had happened, before they went anywhere, because… She started breathing faster again.

“You dropped a jar and it broke,” Peter told her, which was probably only the truth. “You were making dinner. Probably had a shock reaction. Do you want a pill?”

Wanda shook her head fervently. “No, no, don’t want it.”

“Okay. Can you hold here for a minute while I bring the car around?”

Wanda squeaked, and her hand tightened on her brother’s arm. If he was driving, she’d either have to sit in the front seat, which terrified her, but she could at least see Peter’s face. Or she could sit in the back. Alone. “Can--”

“Want me to call Sam? See if he can give us a ride?”

Wanda bit her lip and then nodded several times.

“Here, hold that for a bit, it’s started bleeding again.” Peter handed her the washcloth and fished in his pocket for his phone.

“Hey, yeah, Sam,” Peter said. “Are you busy?”

***

“Jody, man,” Sam sighed. “You gotta keep your eye on the ball, kiddo.” He held up the light wiffle ball they used in Jody’s T-ball league. “I’mma throw it for you now, and you just keep your hands out and watch the ball, okay?”

“‘Kay,” Jody agreed, frowning in concentration.

Damn, but the kid was cute. Couldn’t catch worth a damn, but maybe he’d get better with some practice. The coach seemed to think so, anyway. And hell, from where Sam was sitting, cute was worth more than being able to catch a ball, anyway.

Sam lobbed the ball toward Jody, an easy underhand throw.

Give the kid some credit, he watched the ball nonstop. Right up until it hit him in the chest. Sam smothered a laugh. “You do have to actually _catch_ the ball when it gets close.”

“I cain’t _watch_ it and _catch_ it at th’ same time!” Jody protested.

“Pretty sure you can,” Sam assured him. “Just gotta keep practicin’.” He checked his watch. Two more hours until Sarah got home from work, and then Sam would have to dash over to the restaurant, having promised Bucky he’d pick up a shift or two. Washing dishes wasn’t anyone’s idea of a fun evening, but if it wasn’t too busy he could chat with Steve a little, and the waitresses as they came in and out, so that wasn’t so bad. He wondered if Wanda was working tonight or if she was still feeling poorly after her episode the other day.

“Uncle Sam,” Kendra called him. She had been playing under the tree, with her dolls all set up for a tea party while she ignored both of her brothers with a single-minded determination. “Uncle Sam? Is dirt bad for you?”

“Do not eat the dirt, Kendra,” Sam said firmly. “It prolly won’t kill you, but it ain’t for people.”

“ _I_ didn’t eat the dirt,” Kendra said. Really, she was _four_ ; she should not sound that smug. “Dion did.”

Sure enough, when Sam whirled around, Dion -- just over a year old -- who was still in his playpen, had one of Kendra’s plastic tea plates in his hand with the remnants of mud pie smeared over the plate, and his mouth, and his hands, and in his hair.

Sam covered his face with both hands. “Kendra, did you give Dion that dirt?” He shook himself out of it and stalked over to the playpen to pick Dion up and start trying to brush the dirt off.

“I was jus’ sharin’,” she said. “It won’t hurt him none, will it, Uncle Sam? I didn’ mean for him to eat it or nothin’.” She gave Sam a wide eyed stare, bordering on the edge of bursting into tears, the way she did every time she thought she was going to get in trouble. It was remarkably effective at keeping her out of trouble, to be fair, and that was just something Sam had brought on himself and had no one else to blame for it.

“I reckon he’ll be okay,” Sam sighed. “But maybe next time, ask _before_ you share, huh? Now he’s gonna need a bath before your momma gets home.” He raised his voice a little. “Jody, pick up the balls an’ put ‘em in the bucket for me! I gotta take your brother inside!”

Sam was ducking into the house, not quite ignoring his niece and nephew behind him, as Jody offered Kendra a dollar to pick up the balls for him. Where Jody’d gotten a dollar, Sam wasn’t sure, but whatever. The kid liked to drive a bargain, more power to him.

“Beh!” Dion declared, grabbing Sam’s shirt with one muddy hand.

“Yep, you goan get yourself a bath,” Sam agreed. He carried Dion into the bathroom and plopped the kid right in the tub, clothes and all, then turned on the water before he started trying to wrestle Dion’s clothes off. “Huh-uh, don’t you put that hand back in your mouth,” Sam scolded, pulling one chubby fist away from Dion’s face. “Dirty. Yuck!”

“Beh!” Dion insisted. He smacked the water with one hand, sending splatters of mud everywhere.

“I catched it!” Jody told him, from the hallway. “Kendra threw it at me, an’ I catched it!”

Kendra pushed through the hall after Jody, shoving the old laundry basket they used to hold the balls ahead of her like she was shoving a supermarket cart. “I throwed it,” she told him. “Can I have a granola?”

“Great job, Jody! I gotta give Dion a bath first,” he told Kendra. “Wait’ll I’m done here, an’ then I’ll get you a snack, okay?”

Bath accomplished at the sacrifice of his shirt, jeans, and his first best pair of sneakers, which all got soapy and soaked, he managed to get all three kids fed, and then worked Jody through one of his worksheets for school. They had all settled in to watch television for an hour when Sarah came through the door.

She looked tired. Sarah was always tired. Sam’s brother-in-law, Montell Casper, did repair work for Amtrak and was on the road more often than not so Sarah was practically a single mother. And she worked full time too, in billing down at the hospital. She was taking correspondence courses at the same time and planned to get her CPA license in the next year or so. Sam was proud of her even if Sarah would have smacked him for saying so.

So he saved that shit for special occasions. What he said instead was, “Rough day?”

“Arguin’ with the insurance companies again about what they will an’ won’t pay,” she said. “Same same. I swear, though, Aetna has a gremlin in their phone system. Press 2 for more options. I’m sorry, your call cannot be completed. Good day. They do it on purpose, tryin’ to get out of actually doin’ any work, I’m quite certain.”

“What’s a gremmel?” Kendra asked, hanging off her mother’s dress.

“It’s a little annoying monster,” Sam said. “Kinda like you.”

“Then they’re cute like me!” Kendra beamed at him.

“Uh-uh,” Jody declared. “Gremlins have big, bitey teeth an’ green skin and they’re just ooooogly. Like you!”

Well, that did it. Kendra chased her brother out of the room, demanding that he take it back, while Jody stayed just out of reach by dint of jumping up over to sofa and going over the back of it.

“Did you give them raw sugar for a snack, Sammie?” Sarah asked him, putting both hands on her hips and pretending not to smile.

“Granolas,” Sam defended. “‘Cept Dion, ‘cause he weren’t hungry after his sister fed him a mud pie.” He grimaced slightly. “Sorry ‘bout your bathtub. I didn’t have time t’clean it out, after.”

“It’s your bathtub, too, Sam,” Sarah told him, eyebrows up. Sarah had been trying really hard to make sure Sam understood that he was more than welcome, not as a guest or a temporary bunk between jobs, but that this was his home. “G’wan now, I know you got a shift over at Dockside. Bring me back some of Steve’s pie, if he’s made one, when you come on home.”

“Yes’m,” Sam promised. He bent to kiss her forehead. “I leave you to the tender mercies of your offspring.”

He ducked back into the guest room that Sarah insisted was his for as long as he wanted it and changed into drier clothes. Not that he wouldn’t get water splashed all up his front at Dockside, too, but it was better not to start out that way. He clapped Jody on the back and kissed Kendra’s cheek, and then ducked out, heading up the road toward Dockside.

The restaurant was only a couple of blocks away, which made it convenient, especially when his truck was acting up.

The road was two lane, marked with only a single white line down the middle, and crowned for better drainage during the rain. Speed limit was marked at thirty-five, but most people who lived there pretty much ignored it until they got to the S-bend where they were forced to slow down. Sam walked along the shady side of the road as it was still hot and probably would be until the sun went all the way down. He kicked a clod of dirt out of his path, and then another, and then frowned.

A half dozen or more brilliant gold and purple flowers were strewn all over the side of the road, trampled on, their roots hanging out. The ditch contained another handful of destroyed pansies and the remains of a good-sized ceramic pot. The path of destruction wound through the empty lot just over from the Parker’s house, over toward Little Island road. A couple of pink plastic lawn flamingos were upended in the field, one of them with a broken neck and the other one missing its single leg. Despite their bedraggled and somewhat abused state, they looked familiar.

The path of destruction wound through the lot, over to the corner house. Which belonged to Peter and Wanda Maximoff. The huge, flowering azalea that covered most of the eastern wall was also ravaged. Half the bush had been torn down and lay fallen over in the grass.

That... that wasn’t good. Wanda and Peter both had green thumbs, but Wanda loved her garden the way Sam loved his niece and nephews. He broke into a jog and followed the destruction up to the house. “Wanda? Peter? Y’all home?”

Wanda was sitting on the ground in the backyard, mere inches away from her koi pond, a broken bit of pot in one hand and cradling what looked like the rest of her prize orchid cutting in her lap. “I…” she took a ragged breath and coughed it out. “I’m here.”

“Aw, man,” Sam breathed. He went up to the edge of the pond and crouched in front of her. “What happened?”

Wanda pointed a shaking finger behind her, not turning, not looking. Across the cheerful yellow wall of her small house, someone had painted a huge, black swastika and the words “get out, jew” on the back of the house.

“I came home during my break,” she said. “I… I left my charger at home, Bucky said I could go get it. And I came home to this.”

Sam pressed his lips together, because cursing and yelling like he wanted to do would just upset Wanda more. “Well,” he huffed. “You don’t know who it was? No guesses?”

“Kids, I think,” she said. “There’s… there’s bike tracks over by the wisteria.” She chucked the bit of broken pot into one of the raised garden beds where it shattered. “I need to get back.” She made an effort to get to her feet. “Still got that clinic bill to pay off.” She brushed fruitlessly at her shorts, transferring the dirt from her ass to her hands, and from her hands to her shirt without accomplishing much. “Need my tips.”

“Did you call Peter? Does he know? Don’t let him walk into this by surprise.” Not to mention she could use the support.

“My charger,” she said. “It’s still in the house. I… haven’t been inside. I didn’t know if anyone was there. I mean, I don’t think anyone would stick around, after doing this, but I don’t know why they would _do this_.” She stared at the wreckage of her garden. “What…. My _plants_ aren’t Jewish! They didn’t do anything to anyone.”

“I’ll go in an’ get your charger,” Sam said. “Where is it? You call Peter while I’m doin’ that, okay?”

“Table next to my bed,” she said. “My room’s painted red, Peter’s is silver. And his is a mess.” She laughed, a strained sound, with nothing like good humor in it. She pulled out her phone, scowled, and brought up her contacts list. “Yeah, hi, Mr. Winnisette, it’s Wanda. Can I talk to Peter, please? Yeah, yeah, I’ll hold.”

The house was empty, which Sam had guessed it would be, but it wasn’t like it was a big chore to go in and find the charger, and if it helped set Wanda at ease, it was worth it. The inside of the house was as tidy as the little garden usually was -- Peter’s room aside, anyway. He found the charger right where Wanda had told him it would be, and brought it back outside. “All clear in there,” he assured her.

Wanda nodded. “Yeah, they wouldn’t stay. Cowards.” She coiled the charger and put it in her pocket. “Peter’s gonna come home an’ call Fury. Get that part of it handled. He said I should go on back to work, if I’m okay.” She sighed, looking down at the wreckage. “I think I’ll go in. Bucky needs the help.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. And it wouldn’t do her any good at all to stay here in the midst of the destruction, certainly not by herself. “I’ll walk back down with you,” he offered. “I’m pickin’ up a shift tonight, myself.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Peter was up on the ladder, rolling out a fresh coat of paint over the graffiti. He had paint in his hair and on his face, but the hateful words were disappearing and Wanda felt her heart ache a little less with each letter that vanished.

Peter had wanted to tear off the wood siding and replace it; knowing the words were under there, he said, was like having a body buried in the backyard. Soon, he’d hear it knock-knock-knocking. Wanda had thrown the paintbrush at him, and told him to stop being so dramatic. They both knew they couldn’t afford that sort of house repair.

And no one else was going to pay for it. The cops had found the kids who’d done it, but they were out-of-towners, friends of Harry Osbourne’s, and the parents had more or less shrugged it off as “kids being kids.” They’d apologized, but hadn’t offered any reparations. Wanda and Pietro _could_ press charges, but the cost of pursuing a court case out of state would be prohibitive, with no guarantee they’d get back even the court costs, much less the full amount of damages. It was better, they’d decided, to just do the work themselves and accept Officer Fury’s offer to increase patrols through their neighborhood for a few weeks.

“What do you think about the new guy?” Wanda asked. She was walking around the backyard, taking notes in a sticker-covered notebook, a sketch of the yard. What flowers they’d been able to rescue were already in preliminary pots on flats. It was going to take a lot of work to get her garden back the way she wanted it.

“Why are you askin’?” Peter scowled. “I’ve only seen him like twice.”

“Do you think he’s cute?” Wanda asked. “I think he’s cute.”

“I think he’s gay as a maypole,” Peter snorted. “You gotta stop fallin’ in love with the guys who want the D.”

Wanda squeaked, that was not a line she really wanted anyone else to hear and Sam had just turned the corner. “Pietro Maximoff! Watch your mouth!”

“That’s anatomically impossible,” Peter said. “My nose gets in the way. Hey Sammie!”

“Hey, Peter! Hi, Wanda! How’s the painting coming?” Sam walked back as far as the yard allowed and gave the house the once-over. “Lookin’ good, man. What are we watching your mouth about?”

“Wanda’s crushing on Tony,” Peter singsonged. “She’s about three pages in her notebook away from writing Wanda Edwards, surrounded by little hearts.”

Wanda scoffed and willed herself not to blush. “That is such a lie. You are a liar, Peter, and a bad one at that.”

“You just, not like 20 seconds ago, said he was cute!”

Wanda shrugged. “Yeah, well, a lot’s happened since then.”

“Hey, I ain’t judgin’,” Sam said. “A guy can be cute without it bein’ a crush. I mean, everyone agrees _I’m_ damn good-lookin’, an’ ain’t no one got a crush on me.” He grinned, then leaned over to look at Wanda’s sketched notes for the garden. “‘Sides,” he said in a confidential tone, “I reckon Tony’s got eyes on Bucky, y’ask me.”

“Gay as a maypole,” Peter said, nodding decisively. “Called it.”

Wanda jotted one more set of notes. At least all the planters were intact. They’d been on a deep sale already when Peter had brought them from from the garden center, and with his employee discount, they’d been able to raise the entire lawn up from the natural waterline. Replacing that would have been horrifically expensive.

“All right,” she said. “I think I’ve got my list, if you’ll drive me up to the nursery.”

“Ug.” Peter said. “Can’t you just gimme the list and I’ll take it in tomorrow? If I go in to work on my day off, you know damn well that Margot will put me to stockin’ shelves, _for just a minute, Peter, we’re just so behind._ ”

Wanda scowled. He knew she couldn’t drive, but also that she’d want to see the plants before Peter brought them home. He was good with greenery and he had a talent for nursing even the most frail plant back to health, but they were already halfway through the best part of the season, and Wanda wanted hearty stock, so that it would take the transfer and not die immediately. “I want to go today,” she said. “The sooner this is done, th’ better I’m going to sleep at night.”

“I can take you in,” Sam offered. “Now my truck’s back up and running. ‘Less you need Peter there for his discount?”

“Everyone knows who I am,” Wanda said, which was true. Even Strucker, who didn’t like either of them, wouldn’t dare ring her up without giving her the discount. “Are you sure? It’s likely to take me most of the afternoon.”

“She falls face first into the seedlings and it’s like pulling teeth to get her to leave,” Peter said. “Margot suggested she get a cot, up at the greenhouse, one time.”

“Oh, shut up,” Wanda said.

“Just reporting the facts,” Peter said. “You like plants better than people. Even cute dishwashers.”

Wanda buried her face in her notebook, hoping she wasn’t blushing as hard as it felt like she was. Sam was pretty damn cute, too, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t noticed. Just, she’d also known him for like, ever, and he’d gone off to the military before she’d even gotten out of high school. There was checking out the hot guys, and then there was reaching for something way out of her grasp. Sam was nice, Sam was sweet, and Sam was a responsible adult. He didn’t need to deal with a kid-sister crush.

“I got nothin’ goin’ on this afternoon,” Sam said easily. “Sarah’s got the kids today. Gotta be back by six to take Jody to T-ball, but that’s about all.”

“Okay,” Wanda said. “Lemme get my purse.” She dashed off into the house, hoping to get her bag and get back before Peter said something horrible and embarrassing. He seemed to always manage to do or say something to make Wanda look like an idiot in front of any man who might even _think_ about asking her out. She hadn’t been on an actual date in _three years_ , the last one being a British tourist who’d been down for the summer.

“Whatever he’s telling you, it’s a lie,” Wanda said as she came back out, purse on her shoulder. She grabbed Sam’s hand and dragged him out of the yard, not even looking back at her brother. “Did you drive over, or is your truck still at your sister’s? What did he say? He’s being just awful recently, I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“Probably the vandalism’s still got him on edge,” Sam offered. “He’ll be okay.” He’d parked right in front of the house; when they reached the truck, he opened the passenger door for Wanda before walking around to the driver’s side. “How ‘bout you? How’re you holdin’ up?”

“Fury thinks it’s not worth the bother of trying to pursue it, it’ll just cost more money than what we’ll get back and it’s not a _real_ hate crime,” Wanda said. She really needed to figure out a shorter way to answer that, going into it over and over again was just making her tired and sad. “And I’m okay. As long as I don’t sit still and think about it, too much.” She picked up the binder of CDs from the floor and started flipping through them, getting a feel for Sam’s musical taste. She didn’t usually sit in the front seat if she could avoid it, but it would look weird for her to sit on the truck’s bench seat in the back. Looking at the CD labels kept her from having to look out the window. “Peter wants to get a dog. I’m thinking a good fence might serve as well, and I wouldn’t have to take it for walks.”

“Fence couldn’t hurt,” Sam agreed. “You’d need one if you got a dog, anyway; might as well start with that. And it’d give you something for climbing vines to hang onto, too, yeah?”

Wanda smiled at that idea. She’d always liked the way wisteria smelled and she’d only been able to grow a tiny bit over the one archway in the south corner of the lawn, but a fence would bring up a lot more options. Roses, too, could climb up a trellis that had a wall behind it. “That sounds good, actually.” She selected one of the CDs and pushed it into the slot, letting soothing, seventies music pour out of the speakers. “I appreciate this,” she said, twisting her fingers together now that she’d wasted a whole ten minutes of a half-hour drive looking at music and didn’t have anything to do, aside from look out the window, or stare at the floor. “It’s nice.”

“Not to worry,” Sam said. “I like helping folks out. And I like spending time with you.”

“Oh! I know this song,” Wanda exclaimed. She snatched up the CD again and looked at it. Distraction, distraction. Looking out the front window of cars made her nervous. She started singing, and when Sam let out a low laugh, she could watch him instead. She didn’t have a bad voice, she knew that, and after a few lines of the first verse, Sam started singing along with her. “Car karaoke,” she said, after the song ended. “What’s your favorite?” She was already thumbing through the CDs again.

“ _Trouble Man_ soundtrack,” Sam said easily enough. “It’s toward the front.”

She found the CD, changed it out, and watched Sam’s face as he sang, the whole way. He had a wide, ready smile, even when he was singing, a steady hand on the wheel. And he was nice. Wanda sighed. Peter was going to laugh himself sick.

***

There was a nice breeze, cooling down the swampy feel of the air and making it into something bearable, almost pleasant. Sam had the windows down in his truck and his arm hanging out, enjoying it while he could; summer was only going to get hotter.

He turned down toward Wanda and Peter’s place -- he’d been making a habit of it to drive by on his way home from anywhere, just to make sure those vandals hadn’t come back.

Fury was of the opinion that they were just dumb, punk-ass kids, daring each other to be stupid and offensive. Sam was personally of the opinion that anyone willing to be _that_ offensive needed a swift kick to the pants, but Fury wasn’t about to let Sam tell him how to do his job. At least Osbourne’s friends had gone back home, wherever they came from, but Osbourne was still around, and Sam didn’t quite believe that he “hadn’t been involved.”

There weren’t any kids or vandals in the Maximoffs’ yard, but Wanda was out there, working on her garden. Sam wondered if she’d so much as taken a break in the last few hours, since he’d driven by on his way up into town. Probably not. She was about as single-minded about her garden as Kendra was about princesses.

He pulled over and turned off the truck, slid out and made his way up to the yard. “You plannin’ to stop anytime today?” he called.

“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” Wanda said. She rocked back onto her heels and wiped her forehead with the back of one hand, smearing dirt over her skin. “And then Saturday, I’m on a full shift down at Dockside, and then Sunday I’m s’posed to go with Peter to some cookout thing. Watch European football and drink beer and he wants me to make bangers and mash.” Wanda stuck out her tongue. “Despite Peter’s mostly egalitarian viewpoints, he is a mostly _terrible_ cook. He’ll do it, if I make him, but if I want to eat it, I’m better off doing it myself.”

That smear of dirt on her head was kind of cute. It made Sam want to wipe it off. “Some folks just can’t cook,” Sam agreed. He’d found that out in the service. Riley could burn water. Thinking about it almost made him smile, in a sad kind of way. “You ain’t goan be able to do much of anything if you wear yourself out, though.”

“It’s not so bad,” she said. “I’ve been keeping hydrated.” She wiggled her water bottle at him. “And if I can get it in before the rain, then everything will be all good and settled in. I shouldn’t have to worry about them, for a few weeks, at least.” She petted one of the plants she was working with, orange and brown clusters. Marigolds, Sam thought. She picked another plant out of the flat she was working from and nuzzled at it, like it was a kitten, before she tucked it into the hole and covered it with soil. She wiggled it a bit, made sure it was steady, then moved over a few inches to dig another hole. “There’s only this flat, and the azaleas left to trim up. That bush is stubborn. I think I can salvage most of it, just the one limb that needs to come up.” She gestured with her little garden spade at the bush, all pink flowers and thick, oval leaves.

Sam considered her for a long moment, then shrugged. “A’ight,” he said. He walked over and crouched down beside her. “Got another little shovel? I’ll pitch in.”

“Oh.” Wanda blinked in astonishment. “Yeah, there’s… no, here, you take this one. And I’ll use the other one.” She handed him off the spade with its green handle that matched the gardening shoes she was wearing and the little pad she was kneeling on, and the scissors that were off to one side. The one she drew out of the bucket, however, was bright pink, with glitter sparkles embedded in the plastic.

“Okay,” Sam said. “You show that to Kendra, an’ suddenly gardening is goan be her next big _thing_. Dunno why you weren’t using that one from the start.” It was cute as hell. He could just imagine Kendra waving it around and indiscriminately digging up Sarah’s flowerbed with it, too. While wearing her princess dress.

“Peter gave it to me,” she said. “They had a whole line of ultra feminine garden tools, with the typical pink tax upcharge. I made fun of it for so long, he decided I needed to have it. Once they went on discount. It’s ridiculous. There’s nothing better about this tool, just because it’s all spangly. I mean, I don’t mind that it’s pink, that’s fine, I actually kinda _like_ pink, but don’t tell anyone that.” She shook a finger at him. “It’s like… shampoo. It’s _soap_. There’s no reason for women’s bath products to cost like twenty percent more.”   

“Do they?” Sam asked, before he could stop himself. Before she even drew her breath to answer, he knew it was probably a mistake.

“They certainly _do_ ,” Wanda huffed. “Do you know how much a pack of men’s disposable razors cost? Seven dollars, for _twelve_. And a pack of women’s razors from the same company, that just happen to be pink and have flowers on the packaging? Six dollars. For three. It’s not like there’s anything different about them.”

“I can’t say I ever really thought about it,” Sam admitted. He didn’t buy a lot of stuff for women or girls, except the princess dresses he’d gotten Kendra for her birthday. Sarah mostly handled the household shopping, and Sam just shaved and washed with whatever was in the bathroom. “Seems pretty unfair, to me.”

“It is,” Wanda said. She dug out another hole in the soil, aggressively poking the pink shovel in there, as if the grass itself was responsible for the general unfairness of the world. “Especially when you consider that women get paid about twenty cents less per hour. It’s even worse for women of color. And on top of that, we have to have more bathroom products. It’s ridiculous. And don’t even say I don’t _have_ to have makeup. You think my tips won’t suffer if I go into work with uneven skin tone and no eyeliner on?”

“I wasn’t goan say nothin’ of the sort,” Sam protested. “Ain’t like everyone don’t know how Nat cozies up to the customers just t’pad her tips. Service work ain’t fair to no one.”

“Well, Nat’s a lot prettier than I am,” Wanda said, with a shrug. “Peter thinks I go on about it, too much. That I might as well be mad at the summer for being hot, it’s just the way things are. Peter’s, you know, just sort of resigned. I think he gave up on the idea of changing the world after we bought the house. That was as much ambition as he ever had.”

“Well, I reckon that’s fair. Social awareness takes a lot of energy to keep on top of, I expect. Not everyone’s able to care that much all the time.”

“I guess,” Wanda said. “Here, a little deeper than that, they’ve got big root balls, we need to cover all that up with about an inch of topsoil, otherwise they’ll just fall over.”

“Yes’m,” Sam said, and dug his hole deeper.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“So,” Nat said. She cast a glance over her shoulder but the kitchen door stayed closed. The Friday before Memorial Day and it was already crazy.

Her tips were a folded wad in her back pocket, and Wanda wanted nothing more than to head home and fall on her face. But Nat had waylaid her out the back door, and Sam was leaning against the wall, one eyebrow up.

“I think we should give Bucky a push, no?”

Wanda cleared her throat. “What are we pushing about?” She’d already been told about the surprise party Monday night and passed the invitation on to Peter. Peter didn’t know Tony particularly well, but a few extra people would make it seem like an actual party.

“Nat’s in a meddling mood again,” Sam guessed. “Though I might be on board. Watchin’ those two is _painful_. What’s the plan? We goan paint big signs on their foreheads?”

“I thought you had money riding on this,” Wanda said. She’d been willing to put down a ten on them never getting together, because Bucky had been so indifferent to every handsome face that came his way except for the Senator that she didn’t see him pulling his head out of that for at least another few years, even if the hottest guy ever danced naked across his path.

“Bucky likes him, I can tell,” Nat said. “We must… put them together in a situation in which they can have what they want, without drawing attention to it. Like… mistletoe. Someone who wishes for a kiss will take pains to stand near, but not too near. And Monday is Tony’s birthday. He will be surprised and excited, and maybe a little less shy than usual, yes?”

“What, you want to play spin-the-bottle?” Wanda was glad it was dark, she could feel her cheeks heating. There wasn’t a single one of her co-workers that she wouldn’t happily kiss for a little while.

“What is this, _spin-the-bottle_?” Nat asked, eyebrow going up.

“It’s a game kids play,” Sam explained. “You spin a bottle and whoever it points to, you kiss ‘em. Could backfire on us though. An’ I like Bucky an’ all, but _I_ ain’t kissin’ him.”

“Not Bucky,” Nat said. “Kiss _Tony._ It does not have to be anything of great passion. Steven would be distressed. An embrace and a kiss on the forehead, when you give him his gift. If we all do it, then it will be nothing for Bucky to add in his own kiss, do you see?”

“And if it doesn’t mean anything to either of them, they won’t think twice about it, anyway, since we’re all doing it,” Wanda said, seeing the idea come together. “Societal normalization of behavior. Either one, or both, can brush it off. But if it _does_ mean something…”

“Then we have planted the seed,” Nat said. “You are in, Sam?”

Sam pointed at Nat, and then at Wanda, and then back at Nat. “You are very manipulative people,” he said. “But yes, I’m in. I can’t take any more pitiful white boy sighing.”

“I am helping!” Nat protested. “What else am I to do, crush their faces together and say ‘now, kiss’?”

Wanda cracked up. She laughed until her chest hurt, until she had tears streaming down her cheeks and she was gasping for breath. “I would pay money to see that,” she said. “It’s you, like anyone’s not going to obey _you_.”

“I will save it as a last resort,” Nat said.

“Might be necessary,” Sam put in. “Those boys are _totally oblivious_.”

Wanda slanted a look at Sam. “If they need more encouragement, I give you advance consent to kiss me. Sometimes it just takes a little necking from outside parties to get into the idea.” She blushed furiously; why the hell had she said that?

Not that she would mind. Sam was sweet and gorgeous and… societal normalization, she told herself firmly. She was not throwing herself at Sam, she was helping Nat plot. She brushed her hands off on her shorts, smacking away a persistent mosquito.

But it wasn’t like she was interested in Sam.

She looked up at him again, trying to read his expression.

Was she?

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Sam said, and he looked... amused? Bemused? Bewildered? At least he hadn’t outright laughed at her.

Nat, on the other hand, was giving her _that look_.

“Oh, stop,” Wanda exclaimed and she bumped Nat with her hip. “Just because Steve doesn’t want to get married doesn’t mean you have to match everyone else off.” That was an absolute lie; she’d seen some of the drawings in Steve’s notebook and at least three of them were of what looked like a custom engagement ring.

“Y’all gonna be able to get Peter and Steve on board with this plan of yours?” Sam wondered. “Only works if everyone’s in on it.”

“I’ll tell Sharon,” Wanda volunteered. “And get Peter out of the way. He is not subtle.”

“I will explain it to Steve that Tony needs the affection,” Nat said. “He will not do anything that might hurt Bucky, and if it does not work out--” She shrugged. “I think it will. They are very good for each other. But I’m sure I have been wrong before. Once. Or maybe twice. In my life. Perhaps.”

Sam snorted, but didn’t contradict her. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do this thing. Be good to have something to look forward to at the end of the night.”

“And she means to win the bet,” Wanda said. “I've already kissed my ten goodbye.”

***

Sam wasn’t worried about the hurricane. At least, not much. Sarah and the kids had gone to stay with her sister-in-law who lived in North Carolina, far enough instate that they wouldn’t get more than a little rain from the edges of the storm. Sam had accepted Steve and Nat’s invitation to bunk with them and some of the other Dockside crew. Their apartment building, while technically close enough to the ocean for a “view”, was on one of the higher points of land within a thirty-mile radius, and their apartment itself was a couple of floors up, so it was unlikely to be flooded.

So after he’d finished stormproofing Sarah’s house and boxing up the stuff he wanted to keep safe, he walked down to Dockside to help with that. Damn place had about a million windows, which was great for tourists who wanted an ocean view while they ate, but a real pain in the arm when it came time to tape and board them all.

After that, the insane people went out surfing, and Sam went back home to watch the weather reports. When it looked like they were down to the last couple of hours, he grabbed up his duffel of clothes and essentials, and made his way into town, to Steve and Nat’s.

It was already crowded when he got there -- besides Steve and Nat, there were Bucky and Tony with Clint’s dog, Lucky. And only a half-hour after he arrived, Peter and Wanda pulled up in Peter’s little car.

Sam had known they were coming, but he hadn’t really _thought_ about it much until he saw them coming through the door, and then he had himself a moment. Because he’d been noticing more and more, lately, just how cute Wanda was, and how much he wanted to just... wrap her up and take care of her. And then maybe _take care_ of her, ‘cause when she was smiling, it was about the prettiest damn thing Sam had seen in years.

But here she was with her brother in tow. Which was fine, Sam liked Peter well enough, but a man shouldn’t be thinking those kind of thoughts about a woman with her brother standing right there (which, frankly, was why Sam cleared out of the house as much as he could whenever Sarah’s husband was home between jobs).

So no, Sam wasn’t worried about the hurricane. He had plenty of other thoughts to be keeping his mind occupied.

“I brought wine,” Wanda announced, which was greeted with general good cheer. “They were having a sale.” And she proceeded to put several bottles of cheap, grocery store wine on Nat’s coffee table: white, rose, and moscato. None of them were wine snobs, which was good since none of them could afford to be. Sam’s mama always said that the best wine was the stuff you’d actually drink, and Sam wasn’t ashamed to admit that a little bit of sweet, bubbly wine was pretty good.

They’d also brought doughnuts for breakfast and a bag of ice and a cooler in case they lost power. It was almost inevitable that they would, at least for a while. It got darker outside as the storm moved in, but at least for a few hours, they were watching stupid television. Tony, who was practically sitting in Bucky’s lap they were snuggling so close, got into a loud argument with Peter about pro wrestling and its place between soap operas and drag racing, as far as being a sport was concerned.

Bucky, who’d done varsity wrestling in high school and nearly made all-state champion one year, offered to show Peter the difference between what he called wrestling versus _rastlin_ ’.

“No, no, no,” Nat declared. “There will be none of this in my living room. If you wish to demonstrate your manly prowess, you must go outside for this.”

Tony leaned up to whisper something in Bucky’s ear that Sam was just going to go ahead and assume was dirty, given the gleeful expression on Tony’s face and the way Bucky blushed and laughed at it. Sam decided that the better part of valor was not asking. He ignored the squabble over the clicker that broke out, too, in favor of flipping idly through Nat and Steve’s DVD collection.

The wind was really picking up outside, howling occasionally as it whipped through the breezeway between the buildings. It wouldn’t be long, Sam guessed, before the power went -- some tree branch would fall on a power line or worse, into a transformer enclosure. They were prepared for that; Nat already had candles on nearly every flat surface, and Sam had seen Steve’s camp stove set up in the kitchen. So he just kept flipping through the movies, listening to Steve and Peter and occasionally Bucky fuss over the remote that they all knew was going to end up right back in Nat’s hand.

_Bam! Bam-bam bam!_

Sam damn near threw himself to the ground for cover before his brain caught up with his ears and he realized it was god damned acorns dropping on the roof, given extra punch by the wind. Heart pounding from the reaction, he let himself slump to the floor, dropping his head down and trying not to draw too much attention as he practiced breathing.

It wasn’t easy, though, with the damned acorns still hitting the roof from time to time. They sounded almost like fucking mortar fire.

“Burr oak, biggest acorns in the world. The capucle covers nearly the whole seed, which is why they’re so loud,” Wanda said, leaning down. She hesitated, then said very softly, “Do you want to sit up here with me? I don’t mind.”

“I... Yeah, that. That’d be good,” Sam managed. He’d served with women in Afghanistan, but he didn’t remember any of them being tiny and soft and sweet-smelling like Wanda. It was grounding, to sit beside her and watch the way her hands moved when she talked. Whenever a particularly riotous mob of acorns fell, she leaned into him, just a little, and that was a damned life saver, was what that was.

The lights went out, once, twice, stayed on for almost a whole minute, and then went out for good. Nat got up and grabbed her stick lighter, turning the room into some sort of medieval chapel. It was either charming or they were all going to be murdered by demons.

“Peter, bring me my cards,” Wanda demanded, holding out one hand.

Peter grumbled. “I’m not your manservant.”

“No, you’d have to be a man, first, for that,” Wanda shot.

“Get your own cards.”

“Oh, just grab them already, they’re right there by your foot.”

Nat raised an eyebrow. “I believe, Antonishka, we have found siblings that fight even more than Bucky and Steven.”

“It does look that way,” Tony agreed. He kicked the side of Peter’s chair. “Save some of it for later and give her the dang cards already.”

Peter scowled and dug around in their bag, pulling out a fancy silk pouch. “For that, you can do Tony first,” he said, tossing the deck across to her, because he was still too lazy to get out of the chair.

“Come here,” Wanda crooked a finger at Tony. “Hold the cards between your hands and think about your future.”

She shuffled the cards a few times, leaning over Sam’s legs to lay cards down on the coffee table. The cards were well worn, the art brilliant and gilded. “My mother’s deck before mine,” she said, and then declared Tony’s heart card as The Magician, inverse; latent, unused talents, and poor planning. She layed out a spread, consulted the little booklet that came with the deck, along with another set of handwritten notes in a moleskin, and Sam was pretty sure she was making the whole thing up entirely.

It was entertaining enough, though, something to focus on besides the damn acorns. And the candlelight gave her an ethereal glow that could almost make you believe the magic was real.

After predicting a happy marriage and three children, which had both Bucky and Tony giggling uncomfortably, more wine went around the room, and Wanda and Nat started debating the meanings of various cards as she did a second spread, and then a third.

She flipped over a card for Sam; a figure with wings stared back at him. “The guardian,” she said. “Protection, insight, and the ability to incorporate light and darkness into one, whole person.”

“She’s ridiculous,” Peter said. “I think she makes the whole thing up.”

“He’s just mad because the Fool comes up for him all the time,” Wanda pointed out.

The wind continued to pick up until the trees were rocking back and forth, throwing wild, dark shadows over the walls and the rain came down in vicious sheets. Steve went to peer out the window when someone’s car alarm went off, and then squawked unpleasantly. Sam winced; the faint sounds of crunching metal told him that someone was going to be calling their insurance the next day.

Tony was laying half asleep in Bucky’s lap, and looking up with an absolutely lovesick expression that was really too sappy to be tolerated. There must have been something in those candles, because Nat was actually feeding Steve ice cream off her spoon, and Steve, who could usually be counted on to be discreet, was licking the spoon entirely too suggestively.

“There are other reasons to keep you around,” Nat said, gazing at Steve.

Sam couldn’t take the sappiness any more. “Yeah,” he put in. “He paid for you, fair and square.”

“Ug,” Wanda said, and she snatched one of the pillows from under her and smacked him with it. “You are utterly unromantic. That’s a terrible thing to say.” She punctuated every few words with another smack of the pillow.

By the time Sam had managed to wrest the pillow out of her hands, he’d missed half the conversation. Nat was offering Tony some ice cream that, for some reason, made Tony’s eyes get big and well up with tears. “You remembered,” he gasped. “No one ever remembers.”

Damn it, most of the time Sam forgot just how _lost_ Tony had been when he’d arrived at Dockside, acting like he’d never had any friends before, much less _family_. “You claim to hate Miley Cyrus,” Sam told him seriously, “but I’ve heard you singing along to ‘Wrecking Ball’ when you’re sweeping the porch; don’t try to deny it. And you like AC/DC.”

After that, of course, they had to go around the room and do everyone.

The wind picked up again, and Sam found himself with Wanda’s hand tucked into his, and when he looked at her, startled, she was so damn beautiful he couldn’t look away.

She was curled up on the sofa, her tiny feet tucked up under her, half drowsing while Steve sketched across the room, and the storm raged on, half forgotten but never quite silent. Peter was asleep in one of the chairs and woke with a start when something crashed into the side of the building -- someone’s lawn furniture, probably. There was always some idiot who forgot to bring their shit indoors.

Peter paced around the room a few times, like the sudden wake up call had given him a jolt of energy. Tony and Bucky were mobilizing to head upstairs to sleep.

“‘M already asleep,” Wanda muttered, snuggling against Sam’s side, her head resting on his chest, one hand under her cheek.

“C’mon, let’s at least get the spare blankets and pillows out,” Sam suggested. He brushed a hand over her hair. It was soft to the touch, like the silky material of his niece’s princess dress.

“No, no, no, get up, get off,” Peter said, and he grabbed Wanda’s hand, practically dragging her onto the floor. “I am sleeping on the sofa. You are sleeping on the floor, right there.” And Peter pointed to the floor right next to the sofa -- a hideous thing that Sam didn’t notice when he was sitting on it, though it looked better in the dark than in the daylight. There was no mistaking the protective, overbearing glare that Peter sent across the small space.

Sam could sort of sympathize -- he’d been protective of Sarah, once upon a time, before she’d smacked him and told him she’d handle her admirers herself, thankyouverymuch -- but that didn’t mean he was above tweaking the man. “A’ight,” Sam said smoothly. “Wanda, you just sit tight; I’ll get those air mattresses out the closet.”

If Peter hadn’t been so keen on taking the couch, he could’ve given it to Wanda and kept Sam further away. But no, he was gonna be a little prick about it, and Sam was going to set up those air mattresses right next to each other on the far side of the coffee table, where Peter wouldn’t be able to see them easily.

Sam had always heard stories about twins -- they’d have their own separate language that only they understood, that their lives unknowingly replicate the other’s, even at impossible distances. That usually only applied to identical twins, and Sam had seldom seen twins less alike than the Maximoffs. There was certainly _some_ sort of conversation going on between them, though, the way the air crackled around them. Like Wanda had brought her own little hurricane indoors with her.

Then she turned her best smile on Sam and joined him to pick over Nat’s sleeping gear. She threw a blanket and pillow at her brother with sickeningly sweet helpfulness before getting the battery pack to inflate the mattress. The noise kept Peter from saying anything to her without yelling and making a scene, and he seemed reluctant to actually do more than just glare. And he kept glaring the whole time they got the living room set up.

Nat went around the room blowing out the candles, filling the room with the sweet smell of candlewax and a faint haze of smoke. She left one in the bathroom, but without the normal street lights, it was very, very dark in Nat’s apartment.

The wind howled outside and the rain beat against the windows and roof, and as soon as Nat had followed Steve up the stairs, Sam stretched out on his mattress and took Wanda’s hand. “Come an’ get comfortable.” He didn’t look in Peter’s direction, but he could have sworn he heard a soft huff coming from the sofa. Good.

Wanda stretched out gingerly on her air mattress. She settled in for a minute, then made a face. Sitting up, her arms disappeared inside her shirt and a moment later, she flung her bra onto the coffee table, before laying back down. “Can’t sleep in that thing,” she murmured. She tucked one pillow under her head and curled around the other like it was a toy, then pulled the thin sheet over her hips. It was going to get hot, probably. No air conditioning, and once the storm had passed, the air would be too still and super humid.

She was facing him, and Sam couldn’t see much aside from her eyes, which were wide and luminous in the faint candlelight. She gave him a brief smile before rolling her eyes in Peter’s direction. And a shrug.

And yeah, she had a point. Sam was happy enough to annoy Peter by getting his flirt on with Wanda, but there was no way he was making any serious moves with an audience. He ran his thumb down Wanda’s arm. “So,” he murmured, “once things’re back to normal... wanna catch a movie or somethin’?”

The smile just grew brighter until it was a wonder the whole room didn’t light up like a Christmas tree. “Why, Samuel Wilson,” she whispered, “are you askin’ me on a date?”

“I do believe so,” Sam said. “If you’re amenable.”

She stretched out her hand across the little gap between the air mattresses and squeezed his fingers. “I would, er… I am? Yes. Date, that’d be--”

Whatever else she was going to say was interrupted by a startlingly loud thump from upstairs. Wanda’s face went still with surprise, and then her eyes widened. That… well, okay, then. The walls and ceilings in the Rogers-Romanov household were paper thin. And that was not at all an unfamiliar sound. Sam wondered which couple he was going to be giving the hairy eyeball to, next morning, except then it started in the opposite corner of the apartment, as well.

“Oh, jeez,” Peter muttered from across the living room. “We are _right here_!”

“I don’t reckon they care much,” Sam said. “Anyone want to lay bets on who gets the loudest?”

“I’ve got five on Tony,” Wanda said. “He just looks like a screamer.”

Peter snorted. “I dunno. Steve can get pretty loud when he wants to. Wilson, you in on a fiver?”

Sam considered it. “I’ll take five on Bucky,” he said. “No way is it gonna be Nat. Girl is quiet like a spy when she wants to be.”

Peter made a groaning, disgusted noise. “Of course, that means we gotta listen to ‘em-- what the _bloody fuck_?”

Something scraped over the floor, like furniture being shoved aside, and a few seconds later, a dark grey blur bolted across the floor, all puffed up like someone had electrocuted him. The cat screeched to a halt in the living room, realizing that it contained half a handful of strangers. It hesitated, trying to decide which was the lesser of two evils, then flattened out and squished itself under the sofa.

“Huh,” Sam said, twisting to squint into the blackness under the sofa. “Guess the cat is real, after all.”

“Okay, that was definitely Tony,” Wanda commented after a few minutes of nothing but rainfall and wind filling up the night. “How does he even make sex noises in a New York accent? That’s just taking regional pride too far.”

Sam snorted, but yeah, that had definitely been Tony’s voice, even if Sam wasn’t sure about the accent. Wanda might have been imagining things, there.

“Jeez, Raggedy Anne,” Peter complained. “Do we need to get descriptive? It’s not like I want to visualize or anything!”

“Oh, I would,” Wanda said, rolling onto her stomach and kicking her feet into the air. “I think they’re cute.”

“Man, what is with girls and gay guys?” Sam wondered.

“Simple mathematics,” Wanda explained. “One dick is good, two dicks are better. Also, unlike porn where all the women have tiny little waists and zero-gravity boobs, I don’t have to feel bad about how I look when thinking about two guys. Porn girls are… well, you know. All neat and tucked and snipped and shaved. Like baby dolphins or something.”

“Hey, porn guys ain’t exactly like real life, neither,” Sam protested. “Almost as much shaving goin’ on, there, an’ dicks the size of my damn arm.”

“Well, you’ve got me there, honestly,” Wanda said. “Anything more than six inches is wasted, anyway. I don’t know that they need to pole vault with the damn thing. Now, you want to talk about tongue length, that--”

“Oh my GOD, Wanda!” Peter groaned. “Why are you talking about porn with _Sam Wilson_?”

“You rather she talk about it with you, man?” Sam half-sat to give Peter an incredulous look.

“I would rather she not talk about it _at all_ ,” Peter complained. “Let me have my illusion of pristine, untouched sister.”

“I’m older than you are,” Wanda pointed out.

“Twelve minutes is not, you know, an epic amount of time!”

“Best time of my life. I was an only child for the entire thing,” Wanda said. “Besides, it’s not like you’re a virgin, either.”

Peter smacked his hands over his ears. “I do not need to know this, Wanda.”

“Dude, if you did not already know you weren’t a virgin, I don’t know what I can say to help out, there,” Sam teased. He flopped back down onto the air mattress, grinning at the ceiling.

“I don’t even know how _she_ knows that,” Peter muttered.

Wanda directed her most supercilious look in Peter’s direction. “You think guys have locker talk? Guys got nothin’ on girls. Girls’ locker talk is long, loud, specific, and _dirty_. With a _lot_ of details.” She buffed her nails against her shirt and spread her fingers to admire them.  

“Speakin’ as a man with a sister, you can believe it,” Sam agreed. “Usedta have to listen to Sarah gossipin’ on the phone with her girlfriends, my _lord_.”

Peter started to say something and and there was another strangled moan from upstairs. “Not fair,” Peter whimpered, rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head. “Couples are disgusting.”

“Oh, that was _Bucky_ ,” Wanda said, definitely.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Peter chanted, voice muffled by the pillow.

Wanda made a little humming sound. “I think it’s sweet,” she said. “It’s sweet they love each other so much.”

“Do not mistake being horny for _love_ ,” Peter said.

“You don’t think that’s all that is, for real?” Sam said. “I dunno ‘bout _love_ , Tony’s only been here a few months, but I think there’s somethin’ more there than just a couple horndogs.”

“I think Bucky’s in love,” Wanda said. “I don’t think anything but a lot of feelings would have taken his attention off Pierce. Not that I think he loved that man, but… it was safe for him, you know? He wasn’t risking anything by mooning over Pierce. This… this is something else.”

“I’ll give you that,” Sam admitted. “And ‘bout time, too. That man wasn’t right.”

“Besides, it only takes six minutes to fall in love,” Wanda said. “Falling in love is practically an accident. It’s staying in love that’s hard; that’s a choice. You stay in love every day. Or, you know, you don’t.”

“Like mom,” Peter said.

“To be fair, our dad’s not very lovable,” Wanda said.

That might be more awkward than talking about porn. “Y’all turned out all right, though,” Sam said, and how fucked up was it that he was hoping for more noise from upstairs to change the subject?

There were a few thumps on the wall, and then Nat’s voice, garbled, but decidedly _not_ a sex-sound.

“Says you, Miss Makin’ Hurricane babies!” That was Bucky, loud and clear.

“Oh, god,” Wanda said. She muffled her face in the pillow and cackled, gleefully.

Sam grinned again, smug. “I’ll take my winnings in cash,” he said. “No tradeoffs.”


	4. Chapter 4

Wanda pulled her hair up and considered the look. She’d kept it up in curlers overnight, so it was fuller and thicker than normal, which meant it was absolutely more in her face. Pinning the sides of it back made her look vaguely like she had bangs, but it also looked soft and feminine. She turned her head to the side. No, no, no. She looked like Farrah Fawcett from those old movies. She let her hair fall back down.

She fiddled with her hair some more, braiding one bit and circling it around her head like a crown. No, that was no good, now she looked like she was trying to be Arwen from _Lord of the Rings._

She checked the time. Fuck. She had fifteen minutes left to get ready and she wasn’t even dressed yet!

Maybe something would occur to her while she put her skirt-- Where was her skirt?

She’d already selected clothes for her date after emptying her closet and complaining to Sharon about her lack of date-worthy wardrobe. She’d laid them out on her dresser, but it wasn’t there.

“Peter.” Wanda stuck her head out into the hallway, but Peter didn’t answer. He might have headphones on. She started down toward his room, and then a terrible thought occurred. She stopped, opened the laundry room and peered in the washer.

Yep. That was her-- hell’s bells, those were almost all of her clothes!

“Peter, what the hell?” She practically tore his door off.

Peter looked up and pulled his headphones off, blinking owlishly. “What?”

“Did you do the laundry?” Her voice rose incredulously.

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “You’re always saying I should help out more.” He cocked his head. “You don’t look happy. You’re supposed to be happy.”

“Okay, okay,” Wanda said, trying to control her breathing. “I know, I know, I know, I hadn’t put my laundry away, but everything in that basket was clean! What am I _supposed to wear_?” It’s not like she had all that many outfits that weren’t her waitressing tees and too-tight shorts and jeans.

“What?”

“I cannot go on a date in this!” Wanda screeched, plucking at her black vee neck with Dockside’s logo on it in neon green.

“The date’s _tonight_?” Peter said. “Oh, shit.”

“It’s Friday, you know, the day that comes after Thursday? Just like it does every single week?” Wanda’s voice spiraled up and she was literally seeing spots in front of her eyes. “What… what am I gonna wear?” She glanced around Peter’s room as if a fairy godmother was going to appear with a wand and a bippity boppity boo schtick. Her gaze snagged on-- “Oh, gimme that.”

Peter blinked as she snatched up his green and black plaid button-down. “What are you going to do with that?” he wondered. “It’s big on _me_. You’ll be _swimming_ in it.”

Wanda held it up to her chin and turned toward Peter’s mirror; the color really made her eyes pop. “I can put a belt around it, and wear it as a dress. It’ll look super cute. Thanks!” She smacked a kiss on Peter’s forehead and jogged back to her room, peeling off the tee on the way. She shimmied out of her jeans, and pulled Peter’s shirt over her head.

She had a really wide black belt, where had she-- oh, there it was. Oh, and she had a green pair of heels that she’d picked up at the Goodwill for two dollars. She’d never really worn them much, but they added a good four inches to her height and-- look at that, it was a match, or at least good enough.

“Do I have a green hairclip?” She was muttering to herself and rifling through her hair supplies basket when Peter pushed the door of her room open.

He made a strangled noise. “You cannot wear that!” he croaked. “It barely covers your ass!”

Wanda checked the mirror. “It covers more of my ass than my waitress shorts.” That was true; she had a constant wedgie while at work and had taken to wearing thong underwear because if the lace edges crept out from under the denim, male customers got even more forward. Hmmm. She dug through her drawer and tossed a black thong onto her bed. “There. I’ll just be a little cheeky.”

Peter made another noise that sounded like a frog mating with a chicken. “It’s a _first date!_ ”

She shoved her feet into the heels and… well, okay, Peter might have had a point, but she wasn’t about to admit it _now_. “Oh, my god, shoo, I need to change my drawers and get my hair up.” She waited until Peter at least turned around before stepping out of the lacy red things she was originally planning to wear. Oh well, most guys didn’t really notice if she wore matching underwear _anyway_. She tugged on the thong and got it situated.

“Ug, hand me my foundation,” she told Peter, still looking at the way the shirt clung to her thighs.

Peter passed over a bottle of moisturizer. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Not that, _this_.” She snatched up her makeup compact, rubbed the fluffy applicator around a few times, turned around, and powdered her butt. If Sam was going to see it, he could probably skip the few blemishes and uneven skin tone.

“I can’t unsee that!” Peter complained. “I can’t watch this!” He stormed back to his room and slammed the door.

She heard Sam’s truck rolling across the gravel of their tiny drive. “Shit, shit, _shit_ ,” she said, shoving silver rings onto her fingers. No time to do anything about the hair, she was just going to have to hope Sam thought down was cute. He thought down was cute, right? She was cute? Wanda checked herself in the mirror again, making sure she wasn’t falling out of Peter’s shirt. She undid one button, gauged the effect. No, too much. She buttoned it again. Pulled her hair over her shoulders, spritzed on a little of her perfume, then took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself before the doorbell rang.

“I got it, see ya, Pete!” Wanda snagged her purse on her way out of her room, and hoped she could get to the door before-- _crap_.

“Hey, Sam,” Peter said, having beat her to the door. “Good to see you, man. Come on in. It’s really good of you to do this for Wanda, just really nice.”

 _Oh. God, it wasn't a pity date, was it?_ Wanda stopped dead in the hall. Well, if it was, she'd just have to prove she didn't need anyone's pity.

“I mean, it ain’t exactly a chore,” Sam said. “Where is she, is she ready?”

“I’m sure she’ll be out soon,” Peter said blithely. “She’s just putting on her ass.”

Wanda had to very carefully and calmly unclench her fists. “No, I’m leaving you at home, Peter,” she said, walking up to them. “Hi Sam.” She done harder things than give Sam a bright, cheerful smile. She had to remind herself what they were, mind, but she’d done them. Oh, yeah, okay, working that one night when the kitchen caught on fire, that was so much worse. She was not going to commit fratricide right before a first date. It was tacky.

Sam actually took a step back to look her up and down, and let out a low whistle. “Damn, you look amazing.” He flashed her a brilliant smile. “You ready?”

“Mmmm,” Wanda said, keeping her smile on and her teeth closed, because she wasn’t entirely sure what Peter was trying to say with his eyebrows and his scowl, but if she figured it out, she wasn’t positive she could not screech at him, which just wasn’t a good look. She had to kick Peter in the shin to get him to move out of the way. Honestly, it wasn’t like she was going out with a complete stranger. Peter knew Sam, they were -- sort of -- friends, even. So, like what the hell was the deal?

Peter moved reluctantly and plastered on something vaguely resembling a smile. “You kids have fun,” he said, “but not too much fun. Don’t stay out too late.”

If Sam recognized that Peter was acting weird, he didn’t say anything. He just opened the door and gestured for Wanda to precede him out. “Right this way,” he said, hamming it up a little.

She was pretty sure she gave Sam an eye full, stepping up into the truck, but he didn’t say anything about that, either. Peter was watching them from the living room window -- the blind-slats were vee’d up in the center. She gave him a merry little wave and watched the blinds shut with a snap. “Honestly,” she huffed, buckling in. She tried to keep her hands loose and easy; there was no way she could explain to Sam that she didn’t like the front seat without sounding like a complete idiot.

She fixed her eyes on the dashboard as Sam pulled out onto the street. At least they weren’t going too far. Wanda cast about for a topic of conversation, feeling awkward. She wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, either. It was only Sam. They’d known each other for _years_. “How’s Jody adjusting to first grade?”

“He loves it,” Sam said. “Mind you, I’m not sure if that love is for the academics or just for recess and lunchtime, but he’s still rarin’ to go every morning when it’s time to head out. How’s your replanting going?” Some of Wanda’s bushes had been half torn out of the ground by the hurricane.

“Better than last time,” Wanda said. “And we’re closing in on the end of the season, anyway. Things can be pared back to overwinter. Assuming it doesn’t rain again, Steve’s going to come paint the fence with me, next week.” She risked a glance out the windshield, and immediately looked back down, staring at her toes. Noticed that there was a tiny nick on her leg from shaving and rubbed at it. Everything still felt weird and awkward, and it shouldn’t.

Except at the same time it didn’t. Not quite. They weren’t chatting up a storm, but the silence wasn’t oppressive. She already knew all the basic first-date answers. “Oh, I… Sarah told me you were looking into going back to school in the spring, that your GI money finally came through. Do you know what you’re planning to do with that? I mean, I never went to college. We needed the money for our house. But I’ve been thinking about doing some study. You know, the master gardener program, that’s a really tough test.”

“You’d blow it out of the water, I bet,” Sam said. “I was thinking about going into a counseling program, become a licensed therapist. Help the folks who come back in even worse shape than I was in, you know?”

“I think you’d be good at it,” Wanda said. She let her eyes drift out of focus just enough to look at herself in the side view mirror. “You’re easy to talk to.” It had taken her almost four months to be able to tell her therapist anything important, which had made it very hard to get the help that she knew she needed. It was still a work in progress. She was a work in progress. Wanda took a deep breath, trying to remember that. She didn’t need to be perfect for a first date. Sam knew her and he’d asked her on a date anyway. Which meant -- probably -- that he liked her. At least a little.

“You okay?” Sam asked. “I know you don’t like bein’ in cars, much. I tried to pick a place close by. It won’t be too much longer.”

Wanda made a face. “I’m getting better about it.” She didn’t grab for the handle, the way she always wanted to, _especially_ when someone noticed. “My uncle, you know. Mom’s brother. Peter’s named after him. Uncle Django. He uh… used to drink a lot. Took me and Peter with him, you know all the way up to Waterside one night. Got so drunk, decided I should drive us home. First, last, only time behind the wheel.”

“Damn.” Sam drew it out. “That’s messed up. How old were you?”

“Thirteen,” she said. “And it’s not like I was taller, then. I got most of the way back, creeping along at all of ten miles an hour, and then some cop came up behind us and turned the sirens on. Uncle Django told me we were gonna get arrested, and I started crying and ran us right into a tree. You know that scar on Peter’s forehead? Yeah, that was me.”

“Aw, now that’s just sick,” Sam said. “You were just a baby. Dude could’ve called a taxi, but instead he’s gotta traumatize kids? Hope that cop read him the riot act.”

Wanda nodded. “There were some fines and stuff.” Django had been really angry with her about it, too, but she didn’t want to tell Sam _that_. That wasn’t first date conversation on any planet, in any dimension. That was barely conversation for some time after an engagement party. “Lucky our money-- my mom’s life insurance? That was all tied up until Peter and I came of age. We bought the house two days after we turned eighteen.”

“That was smart,” Sam said. “At least you’ve got a place.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Peter still goes to visit Uncle, once a month or so. Does some work around his house to keep it tidy and in repair.” Wanda never went, not even when he had invited them for Seder. And he’d never set foot in their place, although Wanda didn’t know if that was his choice, or the fact that she never invited him.

Even if talking about her uncle was uncomfortable conversation, it passed the time quick enough, and Sam was pulling into the parking lot before she really realized it. He’d been… very careful, she decided. Not speeding or tailgating, but actively taking her limits into account. She wondered if he drove so conservatively when she wasn’t in the vehicle and then decided it didn’t matter. Sam used to fly fighter jets, he could probably handle a pokey old ground vehicle.

***

What the hell kind of stupid _was_ that? Sam asked himself. Bringing up her anxiety and her nervousness _in the middle of the damn traffic_ , so if it touched off a panic attack, she wouldn’t even have anywhere to go to feel safe.

Sam was about ready to smack himself. Sure as hell Sarah would be laughing at him if she knew he was fumbling it so badly.

 _Do better_. He jumped out of the truck and managed to make it around to the passenger’s side just as she’d swung the door open, so he reached up to help her climb down without flashing her underpants to the entire world.

That little bitty dress, _whew_. Now that he was looking at it, Sam was pretty sure it was just a long shirt that she’d belted up, which was pretty daring for a first date. Hell, it was pretty daring full stop. He was sure as hell having to work hard at keeping his gaze from drifting. Pale as she was, all that skin practically glowed in the evening light. He put a hand at the small of her back and made himself look where he was going, instead.

“What do you want to see?” he asked, checking the movie board. “Superheroes, horror, or romcom?”

“Am I bad if I admit to liking horror movies? Fake blood and weird camera angles and ridiculous ways to die? But you know, not if you'll have nightmares. Peter does, sometimes.” She peered up at the marquee.

“Are you kidding? I love horror movies,” Sam said. “It’s all so fake, it can’t possibly be scary. Some of it’s downright hilarious.” He grinned at her and stepped up to the booth to ask for two tickets to _Bathed in Blood IV_. Another bonus to horror movies -- this one had been out for a couple of weeks already, which meant all the diehard fans had already seen it, and the theater was likely to be fairly empty, just in case they wanted to do a little making out. And if not, well, Sam’d had a worse time than watching a ridiculous movie with a pretty girl at his side.

“I swear, they should have intermissions at movies again. Make that a thing,” Wanda said when they got drinks and snacks -- Wanda's popcorn practically had butter on its butter. “I mean look at this drink! It's a small and I could take a bath in it. How’m I supposed to drink it and sit through a two hour movie?”

“Maybe it’s part of some obscure rating system,” Sam theorized. “Percentage of moviegoers who get up halfway through the movie to hit the head, versus those who stick it out to the end.”

“I mean, I kinda feel obligated to drink it,” she said, wrapping her lips around the straw and slurping as if making a point. “You paid five dollars for it. I could get a 12-pack for less than that. I know, I know.” She waved the popcorn tub around. “Either it's too big or too small. Whatever. Consistency is for lesser mortals.”

Sam laughed. “You don’t got to feel obligated to do anything,” he pointed out. “Tho I gotta say, if you didn’t want it, you could’a said something before I shelled out for it.” He grinned to show he was joking -- Wanda sometimes needed some extra clues, he’d found -- and waved her ahead of him into the theater. “Well, looks like we ‘bout got our pick of seats.”

“Don't even try to take away my Cherry Coke,” she said. “Umm… I like to sit in the back, but if someone sits in front of me, we have to move. There are ten year olds in this world taller than me. And they always sit right in front of me.”

“The back it is,” Sam agreed. “I doubt there’ll be a flood of people right before the movie starts, but if there is, I can be That Asshole who puts his feet up on the back of the seat, until they sit somewhere else.”

She slid in several seats before picking the exact center of the back row, put her drink in one cup holder, and slid the other one up to make the two seats into one loveseat arrangement, dropping the tub of popcorn in the middle. The previews were starting when one other couple came in. They looked around and picked seats on the side, near the front, pretty much as far away from Wanda and Sam as they could get.

The movie was, predictably, terrible, gory, and full of jump scares. After the third particularly gruesome death -- all of about six minutes in -- Wanda was leaning on him, her feet tucked up into the seat and her ridiculous high heels on the floor.  

Sam curled his arm around her shoulders. “Feel free to get comfy,” he invited. It was looking like that mid-movie makeout was going up in probability. He waited for her to snuggle in against his side and nosed at her hair. It smelled nice, kind of like fruit and flowers all at once.

“Actually, I’m a little cold,” she whispered. “They’ve still got the air conditioning going full blast, an’ with only four of us in here…” She snuggled in closer, took a handful of her popcorn. She licked grease off her fingers absently, watching the movie, ending with twisting her thumb in her mouth to catch the last bit of salt.

Well, _Sam_ wasn’t watching the movie anymore. _Damn_. He almost offered to heat her up, but it was a first date. He could be cool, even with the way her legs all folded up in the seat like that revealed utterly ridiculous amounts of her leg and even a bit of hip, and-- _Cool, be cool_. He was going to have to adjust himself pretty soon, though, if she kept sucking on her fingers like that.

The other couple hadn’t even waited to get through the whole convoluted bad-guy origin story before she was sitting in her boyfriend’s lap, straddling him. If Sam was a more superstitious sort of guy, he might think the woman was a vampire, because she kept biting and lipping at the guy’s neck, while he kept trying to look around her hair to watch the movie. It was both hilarious and a little sad at the same time.

“Oh, there,” Wanda whispered. “That’s a Chekov’s gun, you see that rake, she’s almost stepped on it twice now. He’s definitely going to -- ew. Yuck!” The evil murderous villain -- who might or might not have been possessed by a demon -- broke the rake in half and shoved it, prong-bits first, right through the victim. “That would totally not work. No rake has a tensile strength like that.”

“He should’a gone for the jagged wooden end,” Sam agreed. “And then said something like ‘I have to leaf now.’”

“He just has that rake-ish charm,” Wanda commented, stifling a giggle against Sam’s shoulder. “Like someone else I know.”

Sam laughed hard enough to earn a glare from the vampire chick. “Thank you for not just punching me in the gut for that,” he said. Sarah did not tolerate puns well. He tightened his arm a little, pulling her in a little closer. “You still cold?”

She rather absently stuck her fingers under the hem of his shirt, putting her hand on the skin just over his hip. What the utter fuck had she been doing with her fingers, dipping them in her 80oz Cherry Coke? “Oh, you’re warm.”

“Damn, girl,” Sam hissed. He put his hand over hers, pressing it more firmly against his side to warm it up. “Next time I’mma get you a hot chocolate instead.”

Wanda gazed up at him, very lightly rubbing her thumb against his hip. “With little marshmallows in it? Careful, you won’t be able to get rid of me.”

“Uh-oh, you’ve uncovered my dastardly plan.” Sam slid his hand a little further down Wanda’s side, to just over her hip.

“You have a dastardly plan?” she asked. “For _me_? Does that mean I should get you monologing so I can find out all about it?” On the screen, the hero and the heroine had locked themselves in a bank vault to get away from the villain. Which was probably not a good plan for them, but the heroine was batting her eyelashes and looking like she was starving to death and the hero was a cheeseburger. “Or will you send me off from our date in ignorance, never knowing what evil is about to befall me?” She put her hand to her forehead and feigned swooning, showing off her throat and one perfect ear, her long hair spilling across her back.

Sam traced a line from her chin to the hollow of her throat, feeling her shiver under the touch, and smiled. “The anticipation’s part of the fun,” he said, low, letting his lips brush the outer edge of her ear.

“You’re not gonna pass your villain finals like that,” she said. “Monologuing is core curriculum.” She turned her head to look at him while she was talking, which put her mouth right under his. Wanda inhaled, her lips parting. The very tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lower lip.

Sam chased after a breath. “You like to hear some talk, is that what I’m getting from this?” he wondered idly. “‘Cause I can think of better things to be doin’ with my mouth right ‘bout now.”

Wanda tipped her head to one side, just a little. “I’ve heard you talk,” she said. “So, I could uh… compare and contrast, if you know, you wanted to give me a demonstration.”

“Oh, she wants a demonstration now,” Sam said. Heat unfurled in his groin. He put his finger back under her chin and lowered his mouth to hers, keeping it soft and gentle, no more than the merest flick of tongue against the corner of her mouth.

It wasn’t the best first kiss ever. A little awkward. Wanda scooted up just as he leaned down and they bumped noses. A few baby pecks, and then she got her mouth squarely on his. She tasted of artificial butter flavoring and her fingers were still damn cold. But it was sweet and earnest and she sighed into it. She pulled back, her eyes a little starry, although that could have been the reflection of the movie, and then leaned in again, sucking in his lower lip and tugging it lightly before letting go.

He chased after it, catching her lips with his. She was smiling -- smirking, even -- but when he teased at the seam of her mouth, she opened for him, and he let himself delve into that taste. Let her into his mouth in turn, feeling the way her tongue curled against his teeth. He tipped his head a little more and went to work, showing her just how dextrous he could be with his tongue and lips.

Wanda pressed even closer, her other hand coming up to cup the back of his neck -- at least that one wasn’t freezing cold -- and made a little noise, barely audible over the murder happening on the screen. She moved her knee and then there was a scrape. The popcorn bucket teetered on the edge of the seat for just a second, and then tumbled over, landing on the floor, open-end down, dumping at least half the bucket entirely.

Wanda jerked back in surprise, then blinked. Stared down at the upturned tub and the snowdrift of spilled popcorn around it. She clapped one hand to her mouth, and for a few seconds, Sam was absolutely convinced she was going to burst into tears.

She tucked her face against his shirt and started shaking like a leaf. Soft, wheezing sounds were escaping her mouth, muffled against her hand, and when he finally got her to look up at him, she was laughing.

Laughing almost utterly silently, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, god, how _embarrassing_ ,” she gasped, giving another string of smothered giggles.

“We can just pretend the jump-scare bit actually worked,” Sam suggested. Her laughter, quiet as it was, was contagious. He could feel his lips stretching into a grin, a bubbling chortle rising through his chest. “Ain’t no one here to know different.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Wanda said. She cuddled back against him to watch the movie, twisting one tendril of her hair around her finger. She didn’t look directly at him again, ostensibly watching the movie, but Sam could see her, the shy little smile lingering on her mouth, and the way she tipped her chin every time he moved.

He didn’t spend a lot of time watching the movie, either. He kept his arm around her, stroking her side with his thumb. He tucked his nose into her hair a few times, just to feel how soft it was and to breathe in the light scent of it.

When the credits started to roll, he untangled himself from her and leaned down to pick up the spilt popcorn tub and as much of the popcorn as he could reasonably scoop back into the tub without getting down on the floor himself. Of course, that was the dumbest thing he could have done, because now his hand was covered with butter-flavored grease. He didn’t dare touch her with it until he’d made his way to the bathroom to wash it off.

He dumped the tub into the trash and said, “I’ll meet you by the exit?” He held up his hand by way of explanation.

“Yeah,” she said, pointing across the hall to the ladies’. She scurried over, catching the door with her hip the way she opened the kitchen door at Dockside, the edge of her dress swirling around her legs before she vanished inside.

The soap in the men’s room was pathetic even for public restroom soap, but at least the water came out of the tap warm. Sam washed his hands until he was pretty sure he’d gotten all the popcorn oil off them, then gave himself a quick once-over in the mirror to make sure he was still all together before heading back out.

He had to wait a few minutes for Wanda to join him -- something about the ladies’ room made it so there was always a line. When she came out, he was examining the posters for the upcoming movies. “Hey, girl. Ready to head out?”

Wanda bit her bottom lip for a second, then, “Yeah, we should.” She waggled her phone at him before slipping it back in her purse. “Pete’s texted me like 15 times. Honestly, you’d think I never went on a date before.”  

“You’d think he didn’t know how long a movie lasted,” Sam added, making a face. “I mean, I totally get the whole protective brother schtick, but he might be taking it a bit far, here.”

Wanda laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “I can’t decide if he’s trying to protect me from you, or you from _me_. I haven’t, you know, done well with boys. He might be worried I’ll screw it up bad enough that you won’t be our friend anymore.” She peeked at him from under the curtain of her hair. “We don’t have so many of them to be wasting any.”

“I can’t imagine you messin’ up so bad I wouldn’t be friends with y’all anymore,” Sam said. “‘Sides, Bucky’d kick my ass if I alienated one of his best waitresses.”

“Good to know,” Wanda said. She tucked herself up against his side and walked with him back to the truck. She let him hand her up into the truck, and then turned a little to face him before he shut the door. Sitting on the truck’s bench seat, she was actually a little taller than he was. “I… uh, think if you want a good night kiss, you might want to claim it now, rather than let Peter come storming out to interrupt.”

“Lady’s choice,” Sam said. He put his hand on her waist and tipped his head up just a fraction to lean in to kiss her. He started it slow and easy, and then let it slide fast into hot and wet and just a little dirty. He slid one hand down to her thigh, and pushed it up until his fingers were just under the hem of her makeshift dress, caressing the soft skin of her upper thigh, teasing toward the fold of her hip. She gasped a little, and he sucked that breath into his own lungs, mapping the shape of her mouth with his tongue.

She’d figured him out a little, apparently. If nothing else, her skill at kissing one Samuel Wilson had improved by a factor of ten, at least. She opened up, let him in. She wound one arm around his neck and pulled him in, until he was cradled between her thighs, pushing that little nothing of a dress up scandalously high. Her other hand stroked down his chest. She pulled back from the kiss a little and ran her open mouth down the side of his throat. She hummed thoughtfully, then deposited a scattering of kisses along his neck, jaw, and ended with a brief taste of his mouth.

She drew back, looking thoroughly disheveled, her hair a wild tangle over her face and around his fingers.

Sam looked at her for a moment -- it was a damned good look on her and he wanted to see more of it -- and then gently brushed her hair back into place with his hands. “That’s a hell of a good night kiss,” he said, his voice a little rough.

“Probably better than a monologuing,” she said, punctuating that with a sharp little nod. Her cheeks were flushed and she ducked her chin before turning almost primly to face forward in the truck. By the time Sam circled around to the driver’s seat, she was checking her face in the little vanity mirror. He couldn’t imagine what she was possibly finding wrong there. She looked perfect to him.


	5. Chapter 5

There were days when just dragging herself down the street from Dockside to home felt like hauling five thousand pounds of dead weight. And some days it was raining when she did it. The warm weather had lasted most of the way through the fall, but the first week of November, it had turned unexpectedly cold, all at once. Not quite cold enough to snow, but enough that walking home in the rain and dark after a long-ass shift was downright miserable.

It shouldn’t have been so bad; the season was over, and usually it was just locals out grabbing a bite, or sometimes Navy guys on leave for the holidays who wanted to get away from the beach.

That night they’d hosted one of the local boys who’d just reached his twenty-first birthday. His mother had given him permission to go out drinking, but wanted someplace he could walk home from. Which was probably a good idea.

It did mean that Bucky had to mark everyone’s hand -- Wade Wilson might have been twenty-one, but about half his friends weren’t. There’d been a lot of beer. Entirely too much puking in the men’s room, and a bunch of nineteen and twenty year olds trying to wash magic marker off their hands, so Wanda’d had to check, every single time she fetched a round, who was allowed to drink and who wasn’t, which meant leaning really close to a bunch of high school and college aged guys who didn’t want her to look at their hands.

On the plus side, Wade and his crew had left a really nice tip, which meant she’d actually have enough money to buy holiday presents this year.

Finally, there was home. Wanda heaved a sigh of relief and climbed the front steps. She kicked her boots off. She’d have to scrape mud off them later. For just an instant, the cement landing was cool and soothing against her aching feet, but then it quickly got uncomfortably cold and rainwater seeped through her socks. She dug her keys out and twisted the knob.

Just inside the door, she peeled off her socks and--

She sniffed. The air inside the house was rich with chicken stock and fried dough. “Pete?” She took a few tentative steps inside, and then stopped again.

It was like a reverse-robbery.

Instead of everything in the living room being upended by someone stupid enough to think the twins had anything of value, everything was clean.

Pete’s stash of glasses that collected on the table near the sofa were gone. The sofa itself had been vacuumed recently and all the cushions put back where they were supposed to be. She ran a hand lightly over their tiny television; there was no dust collecting there. Even the bucket of gardening tools -- she always meant to put them away, but rarely ever did -- wasn’t sitting next to the door. “Pete? Did you--”

She followed her nose into the kitchen, where a huge stock pot was full of pale yellow chicken soup, thick with kreplach. She could just see a glimpse of the potato filling inside. Fragrant steam rose from the pot and Wanda couldn’t quite help cupping her hands over it, warming her aching fingers.

“Little late tonight,” Pete said from the other side of the kitchen, where he was loading the dishwasher. “Big party?”

“Wade’s twenty-first birthday,” Wanda said, shuddering. “Weasel was there. You made kreplach?” She found herself alarmingly near tears. They hadn’t had kreplach… well, in forever. Uncle had made it a few times, but he wasn’t very good at cooking, and Peter’d made the joke that Uncle made _crap_ lach, instead. They’d eaten it, because what choice did they have? But this smelled good. Like Mama’s cooking and the years before they’d gone to live in Uncle’s little run-down house. “Pete? What is… what is this?”

“What, a guy can’t feel a little nostalgic from time to time?” He gently kicked the dishwasher door shut and came over to stir the soup. “Things were slow at the nursery today, so they sent me home early, and I thought, it’s been too long since we had a good meal, just the two of us.”

She didn’t trust her voice, her throat thick with emotion, so she just nodded. Pulled her brother into a quick hug, ignoring her wet clothes and his dishwasher damp hands. He was real and solid against her. Warm, too. He patted her hair absently. It was nice. She glanced at the kitchen table -- he hadn’t set out bowls and silver yet.

She grabbed the blue soup bowls and put them on the table and let Peter serve, sitting down in her chair.  The companionable silence stretched for a long moment, just the tink of spoons against bowls. Huh. Wanda wondered when her brother had learned how to cook; kreplach wasn’t necessarily easy to make. Finally, two dumplings devoured in short order and warmed from the soup, she said, “This is nice, Pete. Really good, I’m impressed. Thank you.”

Pete grinned at her over his own bowl. “You’re welcome.” He took another bite of his own, and said, “There’s something Wilson can’t do.”

Wanda took another bite, momentarily confused. Wade Wilson had spent all evening trying to make his way to the bottom of a bottle of chardonnay, and had threatened to slap her ass a few times, but never actually did, so what did-- and then her eyes narrowed.

“Sam can’t do what?”

Peter waved a hand around, apparently blind to her sudden shift of mood. “Cook. Not like this.”

It was true. Sam was a terrible cook; on the very few occasions someone had to turn the grill over to him, Sam was barely able to stack a burger neatly, and everyone knew better than to ask him to take a turn at staff breakfast. The man had set the toaster on fire more than once, and no one could figure out how that happened. It _was_ true.

Which did not explain why Wanda felt the instant need to leap to Sam’s defense. Wanda lifted her glass -- exactly the way she liked it, the lime-basil infused water with a lime twist on the top -- and took a sip, trying to figure out what, exactly, Peter was getting at.

“No, I mean, we all know that,” she said, watching him from under a sheaf of her still-damp hair. “Sam’s talents lie in other areas.”

“No doubt,” Pete said. “He’s certainly had enough time to hone them.”

Wanda let her spoon rest very carefully in her bowl. It was sometimes very tempting to throw things at her brother like they were back in elementary school, and she didn’t want to do it on instinct. “What are you getting at, Pete?”

“He’s just... kind of old for you,” Pete said. “He’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong, I’m just worried about how it will play out.”

“He’s hardly decrepit,” Wanda said. It was, to be honest, one of the things Wanda liked about Sam. He’d had some life experience. He’d been through the military, but unlike some of the soldiers and sailors they got at Dockside, Sam’s experiences had matured him. He had an air of gravitas that was sorely lacking from the kids just out of basic, their private and private first class stripes still shiny-new.

She wasn’t actually certain how old Sam was. A bit older than Bucky, but not too much. Bucky and Steve and Sam had all been in high school together. Bucky’s twenty-eighth birthday was coming up in March, which meant at the oldest, Sam was thirty-one. Not even ten years older than she and Pete were.

“No, no, obviously,” Pete said, backtracking now that he’d finally registered the tone of her voice. “Look, let’s not fight about it. I wanted to have a nice evening, just you and me, like it used to be.”

“It’s been just you and me _forever_ ,” Wanda said, letting him go ahead and lighten the mood. “A little variety now and then, that’s not a bad thing.” She took another spoonful of soup and then shoved the last of the dumplings in her mouth. He’d really nailed the dough, still a little chewy even after being boiled, but nice and soft in the middle, the potato seasoned perfectly. “You cleaned up, too. Thanks for that.” Wanda bounced back and forth between being a meticulous housekeeper and finding the whole thing more effort than it was worth.

“Yes, well. The shop is in the dip between fall planting and Christmas greenery, so I figured I should step up a little while I can.” Peter picked up his bowl to drink down the last of his broth. “And I wanted things to be nice for us.”

Wanda tipped the bowl up and drank the rest of the broth out of the bottom, almost spitting it out when she saw how pleased Peter looked. She swallowed and returned the smile. A niggling little worm of guilt crawled around in her belly; Peter was trying so hard, and he hadn’t asked for anything, or given her terribly much grief, and she was weirdly on edge. Like she kept expecting him to give her bad news, or to tell her he’d gotten another speeding ticket and was going to need to borrow money.

Peter -- well, _never_ was harsh -- rarely did things. He wasn’t a bad brother or roommate; she had friends with loads worse. He did his share, and they both depended on each other. She never had to nag him to clean the bathroom (well, mostly… but he was a good sport) or take out the trash. In fact, _Wanda_ forgot to take out the trash most of the time.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel suspicious. Like he was trying too hard. And she was a bad sister for wondering what he was up to.

All they had in the world was each other.

So Wanda swallowed the last of the soup, and her misgivings. “Thanks,” she said, again. “This was really good.”

***

Sam wasn’t quite sure how shopping counted as a date, and if it were anyone else but Wanda, he’d have suspected it was just an excuse to get him to act as a pack mule. But Sam was pretty sure that if he suggested such a thing to Wanda, she’d insist on carrying _his_ bags for the rest of the evening just to prove some point about gender equality, nevermind that she was about half Sam’s size.

But shopping was what she’d said she wanted to do, when he’d asked, so he made sure to be parked outside her house and waiting exactly one hour after she’d gotten off the Sunday brunch shift. He’d stopped going up to the door for her, at her suggestion -- Peter still wasn’t quite over his protective fit, apparently, and it was easier for all of them to just not have to deal with it.

Her wardrobe had apparently recovered from its fit of the vapors; she was wearing a pair of black pants and boots that emphasised her legs -- quite long, given how short she was -- and a mock corset in scarlet over a black long-sleeved shirt that gave her skin a sweet glow. She had a roll of paper in one hand; newspaper inserts, he realized as she climbed into the truck. Wanda leaned over the bench seat and pressed a few kisses against his cheek, getting closer to his mouth with each press of her lip. “Hi!”

“Hey, yourself,” Sam returned, tipping his head to try to capture her mouth. He did eventually, but she didn’t let him drag it out very long, either. That was okay, he’d try again later. “Where to first?” he asked, firing up the truck.

“Big Lots,” Wanda said, holding up one of the fliers which was offering 50% off select merchandise. “An’ Party Central. And maybe, if I don’t find what I’m looking for, we could go up to the Christmas Mouse? If that’s okay?” She turned a little pink. “I like to get my holiday shopping out of the way early, and it’s, I know, not very Jewish, right?”

“Whatever floats your boat,” Sam promised. “Far’s I know, they don’t check your religion at the door, they just want your money.” He put the truck in gear and eased out onto the road. Wanda had gotten a little more relaxed about riding with him, over the past couple of months, but he still tried to take it easy on her.

“It’s… a thing,” Wanda said. “My dad, he was very, very Jewish. Separate kitchen, everything. But mama was trying to fit in here, so we started doing Christmassy things. But she never quite got it, and… well, the wrapping paper, that was one of those things. She just couldn’t see spending lots of money on that. But her friends didn’t know why the wrapping paper she got was always this ugly, cheap, dollar store stuff, so it started being a contest with them. Who could have the ugliest paper. You should have seen it.” Wanda’s eyes were sparkling with the memory. “Awful, awful stuff. And the best time to get it is just before the Christmas season really ramps up. Everyone’s trying to offload whatever trash has been in their warehouses since last season.”

She bounced in the seat, obviously excited. “And this’ll be the first holiday in a long time that… I dunno, we’ve really had lots of reasons to be happy.” She glanced at him. “I’ve never had a boyfriend for the holidays before.”

“What, never?” Sam glances over at her before he pulls onto the main highway leading up to the Beach. “Not even like in high school?”

Wanda looked out the side window, watching the scenery -- mostly sound baffling walls and trees and the dying kudzu vines that clung to everything. “No, I told you, I’m not good at relationships. This is… this is our _sixteenth_ date. That makes it at least seven more dates than anyone else.”

Sam blinked. He hadn’t been counting their dates. Was he _supposed_ to have been counting dates? Damn it, why weren’t there classes on this shit? It would’ve done him a hell of a lot more good than the classes they _did_ get in school, which were mostly about the horrors of STDs and how not to get them (chiefly: not having sex).

“It sounds like a lot when you just put it out there like that,” Sam said, which he thought sounded nice and neutral, like maybe he hadn’t forgotten to count but just hadn’t thought about it a lot. Right? Right. “I dunno why you keep sayin’ you’re no good at this, though. You been doin’ just fine, from where I sit.”

“Well, maybe it just needed to be you, sitting there,” she said. “Is it… would it be… would your sister mind? If I got a few little things for the kids? I don’t know how Sarah feels about--” She waved her hand at the space between them on the bench seat. “--us.” There was that little flicker of a glance again.

“Sarah is pleased as punch that I’m doin’ something other than sittin’ around her house eating up her food and tryin’ to teach Jody how to throw a ball,” Sam said. “I bet the kids’d be over the moon to get more presents, anyway.”

“Great!” Wanda bounced again, humming and tapping her fingers on the window in time with the radio. When they got to the Big Lots, it looked like Halloween was waging war on Christmas and losing. The Halloween stuff was on deep discount, up to 90% off, signs announced, and Wanda headed there, immediately, exclaiming over items with witches on them, including a whole set of -- wow, she was going to buy _those_? -- Russian style nesting dolls with different witches and monsters on each one.

“When you said Big Lots,” Sam said, “I figured you’d be lookin’ at the _Christmas_ gear.” He grinned to show her he was joking. “We gonna pick up Fourth of July stuff at Party Central?”

“They have the _best_ wrapping paper for Steve,” she nodded, not even realizing that he was joking. “What do you think, for Tony? I don’t know him quite as well.” Despite the overwhelming kitchiness of the nesting doll, she’d turned it over for the made-by stamp on it and nodded her approval before putting it in the basket.

She fingered a hideously ugly roll of purple on purple wrapping paper. “Clint?”

“Yeah, that looks ‘bout perfect for Clint.” Clint liked purple enough that he might not even realize it was supposed to be ugly. “I dunno ‘bout Tony, either. Man likes his coffee, we could get him some beans.”

“He does,” Wanda said. They all knew not to get in Tony’s way; standing between Tony and the coffee pot was often a recipe for getting run down, even after he’d had his first cup. “I have a bead on a new roaster, down in Virginia Beach, they do ethically sourced, single-farm roasts. He might like that.”

She grinned, drawn to a big wire rack that was loaded with rolls of wrapping paper, discounted to a dollar a roll. “Oh, look at this--” she plucked something eye searing turquoise and orange from where someone had tried desperately to hide it “-- what even _are_ these?” The label proclaimed them as “genuine Navajo” which was a crock if Sam had ever seen one.

“Turtles?” Sam guessed. “Or maybe mutant reindeer?” If she was looking for ugly wrapping paper, she had damn well found it.

“ _Perfect_!” She dropped it in the basket. “If I can’t figure it out, I expect Tony can’t, either. I’ll make something up. It’ll be hilarious.” She picked up a few other things, and when they went to ring up, she dug a keychain out of her purse that was almost nothing but those little plastic discount tags, and she flipped through it before finding the right one. Despite the number of things she’d purchased -- almost three whole bags full -- the total came to just over twenty dollars and she held her hand up for a high five, practically bouncing around on her toes.

“Damn, that’s impressive,” Sam admitted, smacking his palm into hers.

They got the items settled and as she was getting back into the truck, Wanda raised an eyebrow at him. “What… do you want, for a present?”

Sam gave that some thought. “For Sarah and the kids to clear off down to North Carolina for the holidays, so I’ve got the place to myself a few days.” He smirked at Wanda and let his hand slide down over her thigh. “Or maybe not _entirely_ to myself.” Between Sarah and the kids and Peter, they hadn’t yet managed to get past about second base, because there was only so far you could get with making out in the pickup truck, at least if you didn’t want to get caught by the cops.

Wanda’s eyes were huge and luminous in the parking lot’s lights. Just before surprise gave way to that cat-and-cream smile, Sam wondered if he’d gotten himself in trouble. Wanda might say she was bad at relationships, but Sam hadn’t had much better luck. He’d managed more one-night stands than he really wanted to count, but not much in the way of actual courting. Riley’d been the one with the steady girl that he’d written to all the time, skyping at all hours of the night, and her name tattooed on his hip, just under a scar he’d told Sam that she’d given him by accident.

“Oh, _really_?” She licked her lip. “You know, Pete thinks we’re going to be out all evening. He… uh… he’s… he’s going over to his friends’ tonight, planning to play some Mario Party game. I don’t know, I don’t like console games.” She twitched her mouth a little. “We can always get up to Williamsburg later?”

“Merry Christmas to me,” Sam breathed. He leaned across the seat to kiss her before cranking up the truck and throwing it into gear. “I like the way you think, girl.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For our smut-averse readers: Sorry, this is all smuts! Come back next week for actual plots!  
> (For our smut-loving readers: WHOO, this is ALL SMUTS!)

Sam had been in her bedroom before. Once to grab something for her, another time because she needed a tall person to change the lightbulb in the fixture and she was feeling too lazy to drag out the taller footstool. She couldn’t reach it with the kitchen two-step.

It was an entirely different thing, inviting him into her room _with intent_.

Her room was considered the master bedroom for their little house, because Peter had decided that she needed more space for all her makeup and skin care products and if she had the spare, all her crap would end up in the hall bath, and he didn’t want to deal with it.

She’d painted her room a deep scarlet red and then bought several large paintings of various red flowers on white backgrounds to decorate. Peter had told her once that stepping into her room was like entering the third circle of hell, but she liked it.

Wanda’s stomach twisted with nerves, not quite unpleasantly, as she opened the door and preceded Sam into the room, making a half-hearted little wave, indicating her stuff. The bed stood out to her as being the prominent feature of the room in a way it didn’t, normally, and she chided herself for being ridiculous. Of course it was, it was the _bed_ room.

Why was she always so damn _awkward_? She liked Sam, she really did. She was becoming more convinced that Sam actually liked her. She wet her lips nervously, and then said, wincing as her voice spiralled up a little, “You should probably kiss me, before I start worrying that you’re noticing the tissues under my bed or something.”

Sam tugged her into his arms and kissed her, his eyes on hers right up until they closed. He started slow, his hands moving up and down her sides, sliding over her back but not quite dipping down to cup her ass. His mouth moved luxuriously over hers, taking his time, testing every reaction as if this were their first kiss.

She went up on his tiptoes, pressing herself up against him. She drew her leg up, balancing against his thigh, feeling the heat of him through his clothes. Sam always smelled nice, like lotion and a sweet-spicy aftershave. He had an angular jaw, and a fashionable bit of facial hair. She ran her finger down the line of his whiskers, wondering if he and Tony swapped tips sometimes. And then his tongue slid into her mouth and she stopped wondering about anything except how much longer she was going to stay upright, with his kiss sending bolts of sensation down her spine.

Except Sam was holding her up, practically, with one arm. And his other hand teased at the waistband of her pants, rucking up her shirt a little so he could stroke his thumb across the skin of her side and back. He nuzzled along her jaw to nip at her earlobe, breath spilling hot and a little ticklish across her ear. “Damn, that’s nice,” he murmured.

She rolled her head back, giving him access to her throat, letting her leg go even higher until she was practically lolling over like a movie heroine. She traced a line from his jaw down his chest. He was ridiculously muscular; she could feel each ridge of his pecs, and then down his belly, hard and well defined. He mouthed over her neck, light and sweet. “Hey,” she said, when he rolled her back upright. “Take me to bed, flyboy.”

Uuuuug, why did she say that? Sounded like a cheap pickup line, something she might have said to a one-nighter in a bar, who wasn’t going to care about anything other than himself. She tipped her head to one side, hell with it, she’d just go with it. Sam probably wasn’t going to laugh at her. Not mean, anyway.

“That’s the plan,” Sam said. He dipped and got his arm under her, scooping her up into a princess carry. It lasted about three seconds, and then he was tossing her onto the bed and climbing up after, looming over her in the best kind of way. He brushed her hair back from her face, then trailed his fingertips down her cheek, her throat, her chest, until they snared in the collar of her shirt. “You wanna take this off?”

Wanda kept her eyes on him as she slowly unbuttoned the corset, letting the elastic fasteners open. Sam watched her intently, eyes darting down as she slid the binding off and tossed it aside. Another row of buttons for the shirt and then she was laying half under him in her bra and jeans. It was another black lacy thing; Nat had found a good shop in Virginia Beach and when she gave out gifts to her girl friends, they were usually gift cards for there. The best gift a woman can have is a good bra, Nat would say. She was suddenly grateful; it meant even when she wasn’t necessarily planning to seduce her boyfriend, her underthings looked _nice_.

And by _nice_ , she meant Sam was looking at her like she was a cupcake he was getting ready to eat up.

He let out a slow breath, just the tiniest bit shaky, and then dipped his head to kiss her breasts, along the edge of her bra top. His beard scraped, just a little, just enough to make her skin doubly sensitive. Sam’s hand curled over her breast, cupping it through the fabric of her bra. His thumb slid lazily back and forth until it found her nipple. “Fuck, but you’re the prettiest thing I ever saw,” he swore.

She wanted to say something clever and sexy, urge him on and at the same time, remain just a little mysterious. She wanted to deny being at all pretty, she didn’t think she was anything special, and at the same time, she didn’t want to fish for more compliments. She needed a script, because how was she supposed to do this? With someone she actually cared about, when she’d have to face him every day and wonder if she should be embarrassed that she said something stupid or ridiculous? Or worse, that he didn’t like her as much after? Her breathing came a little faster and it wasn’t all passion that caused it, but Sam was just smiling at her, that adorable little gap in his teeth on display. She’d always liked it, it was the first thing anyone noticed about Sam, how wide and genuine his smile was.

“I think if you keep smiling like that, I might actually believe you,” Wanda said. She tugged at the hem of his shirt, because she wasn’t about to be the only person on this bed half-naked.

“Well, then I reckon I’ll keep smilin’,” Sam said. He knelt up and stripped off the shirt, dropping it over the side of the bed. He was exactly as well-built as he felt, well-defined muscles and smooth skin, just a little hair curling at the center of his chest and low on his stomach. He stretched out beside her and slid a hand over her side, her stomach, his head propped up on his other hand. “I like the way you feel.”

“Look at you,” Wanda said, drinking in the sight of him, his skin almost purple in the half light, thick with muscle, and yet so graceful, so capable of tenderness. She ran her hand down from the base of his skull, over his shoulder and down middle of his chest, testing the springy texture of his hair, the smooth warmth of the skin under her fingers, across dark, flat nipples, and then to the little dip of his navel. She hesitated at the band of his jeans, twisting her finger in a circle over the button. She’d felt him, once or twice, when they were making out in his truck, and one time they’d come really close to suggesting that she blow him while kneeling in the footwell of his truck, but then her phone had rung and killed the mood.

“You want me to--” She got a finger under the tab and flicked the button through its loop, tugged lightly at his zipper, opening up a ridiculously sexy vee. She wanted to photograph him like that, pants half opened, the glitter of light on his skin, the way he was looking at her. All those things, she wanted to remember them forever, like for at least this moment, she had them, she deserved them, and she wanted them.

“Yes,” Sam said, the muscles in his stomach jumping. “Whatever you want, darlin’. I’m all yours.” He cupped her breast again and leaned forward to lip at her nipple through the fabric, his breath hot where it seeped through to her skin. His hand slipped lightly down the back of her pants, curling over her hip, fingers tracing the seam of her panties.

Getting her pants off with any degree of grace, while laying on the bed, and while trying to look sexy all at the same time was probably only the fourth most awkward thing she’d done in the last hour. But hey! Her underwear matched, score for her. She pushed Sam over until he was laying on his back. Helped him slide his own jeans down. She couldn’t quite resist when they were mid-thigh and she straddled him, feeling the way his length pressed against the cradle between her legs. She rolled her hips down against him, hand bracing herself on his chest.

There was some sort of power here. He lay under her, watching her with unblinking eyes, his breath hard and quick, mouth slightly open. And she’d done that to him, made him want her, made him took so wide-eyed and delicious. She leaned forward to kiss him, capturing his lower lip and sucking it, moving back every time he tried to deepen the kiss, teasing herself on him, teasing him. Her hair fell in thick curtains on either side of her face, making the tiny world of her bedroom even more private.

She was the only thing that existed for him; he was the only part of her world.

He reached up, pushing his fingers through her hair. His hips were rocking up, seeking the warmth of her, chasing her teasing touches. He lifted his chin to try to kiss her again and this time, she allowed it, let him plunder her mouth and suck on her lip until they were both breathing hard.

His hands stroked over her back, over and over, toying with the clasps of her bra, until suddenly the thing fell loose and his touch ran down her spine unimpeded.

She curved her back, pushing into his light touch, until she was sitting up, still pressed down on him. She was utterly aware of her body, all the little imperfections, but Sam didn’t seem to notice. Her nose wrinkled up a little as she didn’t quite cross her arms over herself. “Sometimes,” she said, “I wish we could just skip this part. The part where I feel weird about myself, and trying to… you know, figure out what you like, so you’re not disappointed.”

She never knew quite what to do. They really needed to make a user’s manual for being a human. Whoever _they_ were. “So, tell me, one thing you want me to do.”

“How’m I s’posed to pick just one?” Sam wondered. “Just one? I want your mouth on me.” His thumb traced her lips. “If I gotta pick, I reckon that’s as good a start as any.”

Wanda leaned forward and kissed his mouth. “Yeah? Here?” She nuzzled at his lip, before teasing across his cheek and then nibbling his ear, sucking the lobe into her mouth. “Or here?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer before sliding down, making her way down his throat, over his shoulder. She wondered what a hickey would look like against his skin, but she wore low-necked shirts at work and didn’t want to give him ideas about marking her. “Is this good?” She licked over one flat, dark nipple, tasting his skin, the difference in texture. Licked it to a peak and then blew cool air over it to make him shiver.

She scraped her hair out of her face, over one shoulder, and moved even lower until she was lipping at his stomach, her bare breasts pressed against his thighs. She wanted to do something sexy and exciting, like tug his jeans all the way off while still looking at him, but figured if she missed, she might knee him in the groin or something equally _un_ sexy. “Here, lift up,” she told him, skittering all the way down to get his jeans off.

Wanda couldn’t quite resist, when he arched up, and she lipped over his dick, still hidden behind his boxer-briefs, enough for him to feel the heat of her mouth, to give him that long, searing bit of eye contact, to watch him collapse back onto the bed with a breathless moan, jeans unmoved from around his thighs.

“Oh, hell,” he sighed. “You are one damn sexy woman, you know that?” He half-sat to push his jeans the rest of the way off, then took her face in his hands and kissed her, again and again. “Don’t forget to be thinkin’ about what _you_ want,” he warned her, “‘cause I’m goan be askin’ here shortly.”

She groaned against his mouth. “Okay, okay,” she said, breathless. Turned her face and kissed the palm of his hand, sucked two fingers into her mouth and worked her tongue between them. She slid back down his body, then, didn’t even give him a chance to inhale before she tugged his boxer-briefs down to take a look at him.

Her hand looked very pale against his skin, an interesting contrast. She ran one finger down the length, tracing the big vein that stood out prominently. She flipped her hair to one side again, so he could watch her face, corrected for the angle, and sampled his skin. Let her tongue trace around the ridge, mouthed over the head. She tried to maintain eye contact, but that made the angle too weird.

She settled in, let her jaw drop, and took him in.

“Ohhhhh, shit,” Sam cursed. His hand touched her hair, closing in it briefly before opening back up. Not pushing, not directing. Not yet, anyway. There was a soft flump sound as his head dropped back onto her pillow. “Yeah, that’s... that’s it, baby, that’s good.”

She lost herself in the movements for a while, exploring Sam’s dick, getting accustomed to the taste, the way he felt pushing at her throat, the way her cheek bulged out. Making sure to keep her teeth clear, and the annoying way doing it always seemed to be the moment that her nose would get stuffed up, because that was sexy, _really_. She used one hand to stroke him, kept her mouth over the head, licking at the slit, at the ridge, sucking in air every time he rocked backward. The noises they made between them were slick and wet and obscene. She made a soft groan in the back of her throat when his hand drifted down and rubbed at her neck, just behind her ear, and that felt _really_ good. Let her throat relax a little and took him in for a long thrust until she couldn’t breathe, unless her nose was pressed against him, before sliding up and gasping for air.

“Oh, fuck, that was--” Sam sat up and caught her in a kiss, passionately fervent, urgent with desire. He pulled her closer and then rolled them over so he was on top, her hair spread out around her head. “Damn, that was sweet.” He kissed her again, quick and gentle. “Your turn, now, yeah? What d’you want?” He licked and nibbled his way down her neck.

Wanda squirmed under him a few times, getting one leg up, knee bent. She’d had the best luck with getting guys to do it right if she left her drawers on, and they weren’t tempted to just poke her with their finger like they were making thumbprint cookies. “Here,” she said, taking his hand and sliding it down until two fingers were right over her slit. “It’s sensitive. Just… rub it, like you’re tryin’ to get a spot off a glass.”

He touched her, lightly at first, his eyes on her face, and that felt good but not what she needed. Then he rubbed a little harder, and that was better, and he grinned, watching her, whatever her face was doing. He made little circles, and that was even better. “Yeah, I got this,” he said. “You tell me if I need to change it up, okay?”

He shifted his weight, leaning on his elbow, and curled his neck to flick his tongue over her nipple, sucked it into his mouth, teasing it into a peak and humming around it.

She curled one hand around the back of Sam’s neck, holding his mouth right where it was. “Want it, want it,” she murmured, “that… yeah, that’s…” Sweat gathered at the back of her neck, prickled in her hair, at the base of her spine. It always made her so hot, like her skin was burning up. She didn’t even realize she was rubbing her fingers against his neck to match what he was doing between her legs until he did it exactly right, copied her, caught that tiny little bud between his thumb and forefinger and stroked it. The slippery, wet material of her panties was just the perfect friction and all the air left her lungs in a whoosh. Her toes curled tight until she could feel the strain in her calves. She couldn’t stay still, twisting and thrashing under him, wanting it to stop, wanting it to never stop, a balancing act over a thin wire.

Her eyes flew open, her fingers dug into his shoulder and she was hot, so, so very hot. Her heart pounded in her chest and she couldn’t draw in a full breath. Every muscle in her body pulled together until she was stretched as tight as a bow and curled up like a pillbug at the same time.

There was a long dip, suspended on that tiny wire, like a chasm.

And everything let go, it let go and waves of heat and cool swept over her, all the pressure eased up, and that white-hot thing in her back pushed through her entire body until she was crying out, squealing and squeaking and it was not sexy, not at all, but the heat that rushed through her didn’t care about that, it just consumed her.

Sam kept going, didn’t stop. “That’s it, that’s perfect... Look at you, so gorgeous,” he crooned, and he wasn’t letting up _at all_. “You got another one in there for me, sweetheart? I’m a greedy man, I can’t have just one.”

She didn’t know if she could take it, she was so hot. Everything was on fire and she couldn’t stop writhing. It was too much, too sensitive, too… oh, oh, “Sam… wait, wait, wait--” but he wasn’t waiting and the fire burned her up again. She arched up, hard enough to push them both off the bed. Her legs fell open and she screamed until her throat ached and closed and she couldn’t suck in any air as her body was wracked and wrecked, shivering. She fell back, limp and sweaty and wrung out. Every brush of Sam’s skin against hers was an agony of sparks. “Hot, hot, _hot_ ,” she complained, swatting at his wrist, squirming away. “Get off a minute, oh, fuck, that’s…” He rolled away, grinning like a smug idiot, and she wasn’t even upset about it if he’d just let her breathe. She spread herself out as much as she could, trying to find a place on the bed where the sheets were cool, gasping for air.

“A’ight,” he said, tucking his hands behind his head, still with that smug grin. “You g’wan and take a little breather, there, then, whatever you need. I’ll just wait ‘til you’re ready for another.”

“Soon as I catch my breath,” she panted, totally unselfconscious, finally, laying spread-eagled over the bed like the biggest wanton ever, “gonna smother you with the pillow is what I’m gonna do.”

“Now, is that any way to treat someone who made you feel so nice?” Sam said, faux-hurt. If she bothered to look over at him, he’d probably be fluttering his ridiculous eyelashes at her.

“Hmmm, let me think about that,” she said. “Mmm. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Look at you, think you’re sooo cool. Think you got swagger?” She made a huge effort and propped herself up on one elbow. “Speaking of stuff you got, hotstuff…” Wanda traced a circle around his heart. “Bad time to ask, but tell me you got a condom?” She figured if he didn’t, she could just blow him, and he probably wouldn’t complain about that, but as her body was settling, she was very aware of the achingly empty place between her legs. She wanted to feel him, laying on her, his weight covering her and keeping her safe.

“Yeah, I got one in my wallet,” he said. He rolled almost off the bed, balanced precariously on the edge, and snared his jeans, pulling them closer with one fingertip until he could grab them properly. He tugged the wallet out of the back pocket and took out a foil packet, held it up between two fingers. “Y’ain’t allergic to spermicide, are you?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “What I am allergic to is the damn pill. Well, not allergic-allergic, but it makes my depression _so much worse_. So, uh… I’m not on it. You should, uh, probably know that.”

“Gloved love only, gotcha,” Sam agreed. He found the notch in the packet and carefully ripped it open. “You ready for this now?”

Wanda squirmed around until she got her panties off, _yuck_ , they were soaked, and tossed them on the floor. She bit her lip and looked at him, wondering if she could actually be honest with Sam, if that was something he’d ever be ready for. She shrugged, decided to go with it. She’d already had two orgasms, she wasn’t up to pretending a third. “I… uh, probably won’t,” she said. “That’s… that’s not you, that’s just a fact. But I still like it. I still want you to, want to feel you. But… don’t get weird, okay?”

“I’m already weird,” Sam said, with a flash of that grin. “But I won’t make a fuss. You let me know if it stops feelin’ good, though, yeah?” He rolled on the condom with a practiced hand, and positioned himself between her thighs. His hands curled around her shoulders and he nudged at her entrance, teasing a little. “Oh, hell, you already feel good.”

Wanda cupped his jaw, made him look up at her. “Because you made me feel that way,” she told him. She was still really sensitive, her skin prickling everywhere he was touching her. He rubbed his cock against her, faint squeak of rubber like a wet balloon, which always made her grimace, just a little. She squirmed under him, trying to get the angle right. She was wet and slippery and that was good. He wasn’t too long, she didn’t think, but oh, wow, it was thick. She felt impossibly stretched for a minute, and her legs fell open to welcome him in. “Sam…”

“Yeah, baby,” he said, breathless. “Feelin’ okay?” He pushed in a little further. “‘Cause I gotta say, it feels damn good on this side.”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m good,” she said, lifting her hips to ease the pressure in her back. And that was a _lot_ better. She smiled up at him, feeling unbearably tender, the heat between them coiling in her chest. Afterglow, she told herself. She reached up and brushed her fingertips over his lips. “Yeah, Sam, that’s… oh!” She twisted and then he was deep in her. Her legs came up, acting on some instinct, her ankles locking together over his hips.  

“Oh...” Sam let out a long, low moan. “Oh, Wanda, honey, just... just like that.” He pulled out and then pushed back in, a slow thrust that stretched her perfectly. Another thrust, and another groan. He tucked his face against her neck, then, and began to set up a rhythm, not too fast, but relentless, driving. His breath came harsh and then uneven.

She rocked with him, let him move her. She lost her grip on his hips, let her legs fall open wide. He was huge inside her, a heavy weight on her. She hadn't meant to moan the way she did, slutty and eager. She let her head fall back, her fingers digging into his shoulders. She shuddered and a muscle spasmed deep inside her, like she was clenching down, gripping him from inside. The noise he made when she did was… interesting.

“You can feel that?” Her voice sounded incredulous, even to her.

“Hell, yes, I feel that,” he rasped. “Feel free to do all of that you want.”

That took some concentration, working those muscles, enough so that she almost, but not quite, forgot that she didn't come from penetrative sex. Sam slid in and she squeezed, trying to hold it as he pulled out, then released. “Oh. Oh, that's… that's very… interesting.”

“Interesting?” Sam laughed, voice slightly harsh. “Sure, okay, let’s go with interesting.” He groaned and sped up. “Damn, but you feel _good_ ,” he groaned. “Oh, baby, you...” He found a rhythm he seemed to like, then, and it seemed each thrust went a little deeper than the one before it.

She matched him, rocking with him, her breath coming in shuttering pants, her hands getting tighter on him. She turned her head and crushed her mouth up onto his, mimicking his thrusts with her tongue, barely even kissing, just licking at him, needing something to do with her mouth or she was going to start screaming again as dull heat build in her groin and pooled upward.

“Oh, oh, oh, baby, that’s--” Sam’s voice broke and his rhythm stuttered. “Wanda, that’s-- Oh!” Sam’s entire body went tight and rigid, and she could feel the pulsing of his dick inside her as he came. After a moment, he went limp, panting into the curve of her neck. “Damn, that was... that was fantastic.”

She fell back, breathing hard, her whole body zinging with sensation, like tiny little lightning bolts. She thought maybe -- _maybe_ \-- if he hadn’t wrenched a second one out of her so quick, she might have gotten there again. Worth trying again. Later. He was hot and his skin was tacky with cooling sweat and the entire roots of her hair were soaked. She groaned, got her arms under her neck and fluffed her hair out, which made Sam splutter as the long strands of it struck him in the face.

He withdrew and sat up to deal with the condom, tying it off and tossing it into her little trash can, before flopping back onto the bed sideways and spreading out his arms. “You doin’ all right, there?”

“Yeah, I…” Wanda stuttered, staring up at the ceiling. “Yes. Doing amazing, that… was very nice.” She winced. Damn, could she sound more like someone’s maiden auntie complimenting a tea cup pattern?

Sam just chuckled, though. “Glad t’hear it. Lookin’ forward to findin’ time for a repeat performance.”

She was drying off and getting a little cold, so she rolled over toward him, cuddling against him. “Sam,” she asked, not looking up at him. “So, I… are we… is this a thing, then? Like.. I hate to say _boyfriend-girlfriend_ , that sounds so middle school, but. An exclusive thing?” She liked to think of herself as strong and independent, even though she knew she really was neither thing, and if it was still just dating, that was fine, she didn’t want him to think that wasn’t fine, but… she wanted to know if it was okay, to open up her heart and let him in.

Sam rolled his head to look at her directly. “If you think we got a run at it, I’d be delighted t’be your boyfriend.”

“Okay, then.” Wanda yawned, and squirmed around to get the blanket up over them. “Shouldn’t nap too long. Peter’ll be home in a few hours.” She knew they probably shouldn’t sleep at all, but she didn’t want him to go, just yet, so she cuddled up until she was half laying on him, to keep him with her. For just an hour.

She let her eyes drift closed.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Wanda checked herself very thoroughly in the mirror before she left the house. Not like Tony hadn’t come into work some mornings looking like he’d thoroughly been run over by a sex-truck, complete with hickeys. That being said, Tony was the dishwasher and busboy.

Not that Bucky was going to dock her pay; even if he could legally do that, he wouldn’t. But so many of her work-shirts were scoop necked to show off her cleavage… and customers, they were likely to dock her for having a few love bites.

She did have a touch of beard burn just over her left collarbone, but she picked out a cross-back wrap top that covered that spot and left her midriff bare instead. She looked perfectly normal when she hung up her coat and put her purse in her locker, thank you very much, Tony Stark.

Which made it all the more irritating when Tony looked up from his coffee and silverware wrapping and made a thoughtful, _knowing_ humming sound. “ _Some_ one had a good date night.”

She absolutely resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest, like that would do anything. “What are you talking about?” She didn’t quite look at him, either. “Of course I had a good date. We went shopping, it was fun.” She poured herself a cup of coffee, added a squeeze of local honey and stirred it.

“Is that what the kids are calling it now? _Shopping_?” Tony smirked over the rim of his coffee cup.

Stupid societal norms. There was no reason for her to be embarrassed about it. She was a grown woman, she was allowed to choose a partner and have sex. “I’m not that much younger than you are,” she pointed out. “And we did go shopping. Besides, it’s… well, it’s sort of official now.”

“Yeah?” The smirk widened into something genuine and pleased. “That’s great! I’m glad to hear it.” He patted the table next to him. “Come help me with this silverware and tell me everything!”

“I am certainly _not_ going to tell you everything,” Wanda said, but she sat down with him and grabbed a handful of silver. “But I should talk to Nat, at least. I wasn’t… really expecting things to move forward just yet. Nat’s so particular about all of us having nice underwear, though. So, everything matches.” She glanced at Tony sidelong. “Do guys actually notice that? I mean… I know that I feel sexier if everything matches and is cute, but I swear sometimes I could wear orange lipstick and men’s boxers and no one would notice.”

Tony tipped his hand from side to side. “Depends on the guy, of course. Some of us notice. Some of us don’t.” He reached into the bucket for another set of silverware, and pulled a napkin off the stack in the middle of the table. “And some guys notice but are so grateful to see underwear at all that they’d never mention it.”

“I don’t know if Sam noticed,” Wanda said. “Still. He didn’t seem to have any complaints, except for me shoving him out the door at one in the morning. In the rain.” She almost laughed, remembering Sam’s reluctance to get out of her bed, and complaining, loudly, about how mean she was, all the while stealing kisses and touching her while she walked him to the door, wearing only her oversized night shirt.

Tony hummed again. “You’re blushing,” he singsonged.

“Good gravy, Tony Stark!” Wanda exclaimed, popping up from her seat. “If you’re going to be that way, wrap the damn silver yourself. I am allowed to have sex!”

“You are? With who? Not in my kitchen,” Bucky said, coming out from his office.

“Wanda and Sam finally made things official,” Tony told his boyfriend, grinning like a lunatic.

“‘Bout time,” was what Bucky had to say about that, which struck Wanda as particularly unfair, since at least she and Sam had been dating for a while.

“No room to talk. You two are practically in the dictionary under ‘pining idiots’,” Wanda said. “You know, I don’t come here to be abused.”

“Really?” Bucky wondered. “Where do you go, then?” He smiled, then tugged her into a hug, resting his chin on top of her head. “No, really. I’m happy for you both. I think Sam’ll be good for you.”

“You’re good for him, too,” Tony added. “He’s been moping a lot less the last couple of months.”

Wanda couldn’t decide what to say to that; she almost protested that Sam wasn’t moping (except everyone knew that he had been) and then thought about mentioning that Sam had every right to have a tough time of it, being deployed overseas had been really hard on him, to not wanting to mention it because Sam’s trauma was Sam’s business. She was almost grateful when the bell jingled over the front door.

Time to go to work.

Except that it wasn’t an early customer.

It was Peter, and he looked both furious and stricken at the same time. She hadn’t seen that expression for a while. He’d been getting better, she thought.

“Pietro?” She went to him immediately, holding out her hands in sudden anxiety on her brother’s behalf. “Are you all right?”

Peter stepped back from her, his scowl growing darker. “You _lied_ to me!”

Wanda stopped dead in the middle of the floor, gaze flicking around the room as if she expected a teleprompter to give her the next line. Or to see if there were any witnesses. “Lied?” she asked. “About what? I… Peter, what’s wrong?”

“You said,” Peter snarled. “You _said_ you were going _shopping_. But that’s not what happened, is it?”

Wanda’s neck cracked as she swiveled her head from one side of the room to the other. No customers yet, and Tony hadn’t stuck his head out to see what the yelling was about. If Peter was even yelling, Wanda couldn’t tell sometimes. “We did go shopping,” she said, very carefully. “Why? Is there a charge on the card that shouldn’t be there?” She pulled out her phone; crap, if someone had taken their card, or used the number to rack up some false charges, she needed to get on top of that, right away, and even with the “only” fifty dollars that they’d be responsible for, that could take a huge bite out of their budget. She thumbed through her apps to the banking button.

Peter reached out and snatched the phone away from her before she could stop him -- Peter had always been faster. “It’s not the charge!” he hissed. “You... I was taking out the trash and you had...” His voice lowered and somehow, simultaneously became even more furious. “You _fucked_ him.”

There were fifteen possible reactions to that, probably, if she had to stop and count them all up, which she did. Because if she didn’t, she was very likely to hit her brother upside the head with a picnic table bench, and then Bucky was going to fire her. Probably.

“I… am not entirely sure why that’s any of your business,” she said, relaxing her hands so they didn’t ball up near her sides. Uncle always got mad if she made fists. Ladies don’t get angry, ladies don’t hit people, ladies did what they were told. Clenching her fists was _defiance_.

She hated that she felt sick about it, too.

She was a grown up woman, she had the right to have sex. And enjoy it. With as many people as she wanted to. (That also wanted to have sex with her because consent was important.)

“You had sex with him,” Peter growled. “With _Sam Wilson._ In _our house_!”

Aaand her mouth got away from her. “You’d prefer it if I banged him in his pickup truck?” She gasped, then slapped one hand over her mouth. She had not meant to get sarcastic with him.

Peter’s mouth thinned. “I’d _prefer_ you not bang him at all!”

“Why do you get a say in this? Sam and I have been dating for _three months_ , it’s not like he’s some stranger in a bar?” Wanda started seeing red, the way it fogged in around her vision, the way everything about Peter’s face was sharp and defined and… he really was angry with her? About _this_? Of all the things she could possibly do… “We were perfectly safe and adult about it, too. Not that it’s your concern, Pietro.”

“Adult,” Peter sneered. “You were an _adult_ with _Sam_.”

She could be adult here, she really could. She was going to be adult about this. That was going to happen. “So, let’s just dig down into this, shall we? You know I’ve had sex before, right? Like, neither of us is exactly inexperienced. I know about some of your partners, too. You want me to not know, you should be quieter.”

“It’s not about that!”

“So, if it’s not me slutting it up,” Wanda burst out, “then what is it? You have a particular objection to us being _in the house_? Because you know, that’s just as much my house as it is yours. Or is it Sam, in particular, you’ve got a problem with? Because, what? He’s black?”

“What? _No!_ Don’t be stupid!”

“So, it’s me, then? You don’t think I can handle having an adult relationship? You don’t think I deserve a boyfriend? That I’m not capable of maintaining some sort of decent romantic connection with someone?” She didn’t understand this at all; Peter had never been quite so weird about her dating, so it had to be something. Admittedly, this was the longest relationship she’d ever been in (well, aside from that one guy, and it was a long distance thing, and their actual relationship had maybe lasted about six weeks, but he’d kept answering her emails and getting her to send him photos for a lot longer, until she found out from someone else that he considered her the side chick. So, she wasn’t quite sure how long that had lasted, but it probably wasn’t anywhere close to what she and Sam had going on.)

“Of course it’s not you!” Peter was pacing now, throwing his hands around with every word.

Wanda found a seat and fell into it. “So, it must be Sam, then. You want to tell me what’s so awful about Sam?”

“You know, Sam is wonderin’ that, himself,” Sam said from the kitchen doorway, arms folded across his chest.

***

Sam felt good. Sam felt _really_ good.

He didn’t have a lot of patience for the kind of guys who excused their bad moods with _I just need to get laid_ , but he sure as hell couldn’t deny the benefits of that particular brand of endorphins. It’d been a long damn time since he’d felt this damn good.

Sarah could tell, he was sure of it, but she just gave him a sly smile as he hugged Jody and kissed Kendra and Dion and headed out for his shift at Dockside. He’d been picking up shifts on the regular lately -- dating took a bit more ready cash than what Sam got in his benefits check each month -- but it was worth it. Hooboy, had it been worth it.

He wondered if he could convince Sarah that she wanted to take the kids to North Carolina for the holidays without out and out admitting he wanted the house to himself for a while. Probably not. But she might be willing to do it, anyway. Sarah liked Wanda.

He pushed into Dockside’s back kitchen door and found the bucket of silver and a stack of napkins abandoned on the staff table, along with what looked like a cold cup of coffee. Tony was up against the wall by the batwings, peering out onto the floor.

“Hey, man,” Sam said. “What’s up?”

Tony jumped about a mile. “Nothing!” he said, a little too quickly. “Come on, come help me finish up this silverware.”

Sam dropped his wallet and keys in his locker, but didn’t sit where Tony was pointing, Instead, he made his own way over to the batwings.

“Sam, I don’t think you want to--” Tony tried, but Sam just waved him off.

He saw Wanda first, her shoulders all tight up around her ears like she was upset. And then he saw Peter, pacing and waving his hands around.

“--can handle having an adult relationship?” Wanda was saying. “You don’t think I deserve a boyfriend? That I’m not capable of maintaining some sort of decent romantic connection with someone?” Yeah, that was what Sam had thought this was.

“Of course it’s not you!” Peter said. He had a wild look around his eyes, like a cornered rat.

Wanda dropped onto one of the benches, her whole body so tense it made Sam’s muscles ache. “So, it must be Sam, then. You want to tell me what’s so awful about Sam?”

Sam pushed open the batwing and folded his arms. “You know, Sam is wonderin’ that, himself,” he interjected.

Peter looked up with wide, startled eyes. “Ah, shit.”

“Great,” Wanda said, “faaantastic. You’re going to _ruin_ this for me. You’ve ruined it. No one’s ever going to want to have anything to do with me, and I’m going to end up with nine cats, which is like, seven cats too many, and a garden, and alone, and why? I would really just like to know why, Peter!”

“Because he’s going to take you away!” Peter shouted, and then clapped both hands over his mouth like he thought he could stop the words from coming out retroactively.

And oh. _Oh_. Shit. Those two... they’d been on their own, together against the world, for years. Peter hadn’t been feeling protective; he’d been _jealous_. “What the hell, man,” Sam said, as gently as he knew how. “I ain’t taking anyone away.”

“ _What_?” Wanda was staring at her brother like he’d just said something astonishing. “What, Pietro, you know…” She glanced at Sam, cheeks flushed pink. “Peter, you know better than that, where would I go, anyway? I’m not… no one’s taking me anywhere. You are my brother, you’re my blood, you’re my best friend. I would never, ever _leave you_.” Sam wasn’t entirely surprised to see that she was crying. He wasn’t even sure if she knew that she was. The tears just rolled down her cheeks.

Peter dropped down onto a bench and buried his face in his hands. There was a hot red flush climbing up out of his collar. “You say that,” he said, voice muffled. “But no guy wants his girlfriend’s dumb brother hanging out all the time. You remember that guy, what was his name, who used to get mad if you invited me along?”

“Yeah, well, Viz was an ass,” Wanda said. “For more reasons than just that. The guy had no concept of privacy or personal space either.” She rolled her eyes expressively. “He used to stand like right next to the door if I had to pee. Do you know how weird that is?” She sat down next to her brother. “And you’re not stupid. Well, most of the time. Sometimes you can be a little hard-headed.” She leaned against Peter’s shoulder and gave Sam a helpless, appealing look, like somehow, she expected him to fix it.

“I like hanging out with you,” Sam said carefully, “when you’re not bein’ an ass. I ain’t sayin’ I’m always gonna want you lookin’ over our shoulders, but if you just want to hang out more, man, all you had to do was say so.”

“Just leave me to die,” Peter mumbled.

“I certainly will not,” Wanda huffed. “Come on… look, you don’t want to die here, Bucky’ll just put you to work if you lay around too long. I’m going to walk you home, and I’m going to come back and work, and we’ll talk about this like actual adult people… this evening? Okay, Peter? It’s okay, I promise, I’m not going to do anything drastic.” She poked and cajoled until she got Peter on his feet. “Sam, can you watch the tables for me, I’ll be right back.” The face she made was… well, Sam didn’t rightly know. A mix of apology and chagrin and reassurance, maybe. But he wasn’t sure what she was apologizing _for_.

Peter and Wanda didn’t usually look much like siblings, but the way Peter held onto his sister while they walked away -- and Wanda didn’t look back at Sam, he knew that because he watched her the whole way -- they couldn’t possibly have looked any more identical.

When they were out of sight, Sam blew out a breath. That was going to be a hell of a conversation, later, redefining boundaries and setting expectations. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but he expected they’d come out of it a whole lot healthier.

And even less than he wanted to have _that_ conversation, he didn’t want to go back into the kitchen to face the gossips, because Tony would have been listening for sure, and if Nat had turned up while they were having it out... Sam sighed. Might as well get it over with.

 


	8. Chapter 8

The best thing about the Cranberry Festival was that Dockside’s little fry-station was just four booths down from the kettle corn maker.

The worst thing about the Cranberry Festival was that Dockside’s fry-station was entirely too close to the kettle corn booth. When Tony brought back a third large bag and dumped it in a bowl behind their counter, Wanda was groaning. She really wasn’t hungry anymore, she _wasn’t_. But it smelled so good, it was hard to resist.

As far as she could tell, Tony wasn’t even _trying_ to resist.

“Feed me, Seymour,” Wanda begged, opening her mouth. She was up to her elbows mixing up the thick cornmeal batter and rolling hushpuppies for Steve to deep fry. On the other end of their little assembly line was Bucky, wrapping finished crab cakes in paper for quick sale, and they were selling out faster than the line was going down. At all.

Tony tossed a handful of kettle corn into Wanda’s mouth. “When is Sam coming back? We could use an extra hand here.” He turned a bright smile on the next person in line. Tony got the cashier job because he could figure the totals in his head faster than anyone else, which was good, because they didn’t have a working cash register on hand.

“No, it’s _fine_ , Stevie, we won’t need any extra help for the festival,” Steve said sarcastically, fishing another batch of crab cakes out of the hot oil and putting in a batch of hushpuppies. “We can _totally_ handle it with just the three of us.”

Bucky gave Steve a brilliant smile. “We’re handling it,” he said, then looked out over the line. Much like the popcorn, the crab cake smell had wafted around on the late autumn breeze and brought in dozens of customers. While Wanda would be the first person to admit that fried cornmeal and crab cakes probably weren’t the healthiest things out there, they were also solid food, and better at filling up a bunch of hungry people than popcorn.

Also, Bucky was charging almost double the normal rate. Which was just highway robbery.

“He went to pick up Peter,” Wanda said. “And then you’ll have _two whole extra people_ to boss around, for about three hours.” Sharon was coming in to help for the evening shift, as well as Nat, who was taking her turn wandering the fair. She had come back twice to snitch extra cash out of Steve’s wallet, and Wanda had been pretty curious about what she’d decided she needed that badly.

Which would give her, Sam, and Peter their first… group date, for lack of something better to call it.

Wanda was torn between wondering if the whole idea was going to be an epic disaster and pretty much guarantee her spinsterhood, or if the boys were going to surprise her.

She rolled another batch of hushpuppies and moved them to Steve’s prep board, wiping her forehead off with her shoulder. It was ridiculously hot in the Pavillion. Some of the shops, at least, were outside. As well as a gourmet hot cocoa booth. She’d been seeing people with those cups all afternoon.

“What Bucky means,” Tony tossed back over his shoulder, “is thank you for coming in on short notice and helping us out, Wanda. We really weren’t expecting to be quite _this_ popular.” He reached for three wrapped crabcakes and dropped them into a little plastic basket, then turned back to the waiting customer.

Steve scooped out the hushpuppies and added the crabcakes he’d prepped while watching the ‘puppies cook. “It keeps up at this rate, we’ll have to close the window long enough to mix up a fresh batch,” he said, eyeing the level of crab salad left. He reached over to help Wanda with the next batch of hushpuppies.

“Next time, we’ll pre-prep more,” Bucky said. He still seemed pleased, looking at the length of the line. Wanda had been working at Dockside since the day after her eighteenth birthday and they’d never had enough extra cash to take a risk on booth-fees and the portable kitchen license. “Oh!”

Wanda peeled off a glove to grab another few handfuls of popcorn while Steve was churning out hushpuppies a lot faster than she could; she was just getting in the way. “What?” She ducked around Bucky to look. It was very annoying being the shortest person among her group of friends. She got a hand on Tony’s shoulder and used him to bounce up-- Sam and Peter… and Clint and Bobbi, too, were headed in their direction.

Her brother had a ridiculous, obviously recently acquired, knit hat over his blue hair.

Sam led them all through the side door into the tiny kitchen, which was abruptly even tinier with that many people in it. “I brought extras; I figure we can always use an extra hand or two,” he announced. “If nothin’ else, if things get slow, we’ll send ‘em out with free samples. And that way, I might actually get to spend some time with my girlfriend this weekend that doesn’t involve being crammed in here with the bunch of you.”

“You love us,” Bucky said, clasping both hands next to his cheek and giving Sam his widest eyes with those unfairly long lashes. It was cheesy and over the top, but got the expected laugh.

“No,” Wanda said. “He loves _me_. And Tony.” She added hastily, because she and Sam had never actually said the L-word yet (not lesbian, despite Tony’s joking pop culture references), “and he’s taking pity on us.”

“Everyone loves me,” Tony said confidently.

“Not if you keep selling out my stock before I can cook more, I don’t,” Steve mock-threatened. He turned to Sam and Peter. “Heat up the other fryer. We had to take fries off the menu because we couldn’t keep up with them at the same time, but with the extra hands, I think we can manage it.” He jerked his head at Clint. “You take over making the crabcake patties. And Bobbi, you go help Tony assemble orders. We’ll get through this rush faster.”

Wanda took advantage of Steve’s workload to sneak a kiss from Sam before they all got to work. “Tony brought back some popcorn,” she told everyone. “Eat some, so I don’t finish it off.”

They got to work, the banter and general ridiculous expanding outward now that they could breathe in between customers. She was lighter on her feet, standing near Sam while he ran the other fryer, and counting down time until they could go shopping.

It finally arrived, in the form of Nat. She hadn’t even finished washing her hands before Peter was tugging Wanda back toward the door. “Sharon will be here soon,” he said, “so we’re going now. See you all later!”

“Bring back more kettle corn!” Tony called.

“He’s gotta be kidding,” Wanda muttered. “He’s eaten enough popcorn today to stock a movie theater.” Personally, if she never saw another piece of popcorn, it would be too soon. She linked one arm with her brother and took Sam’s hand, twining their fingers together. “Let’s do the outside booths first?”

“You’re the boss,” Sam said amiably. “I just wanted to get out of that kitchen for a while. Mission accomplished: I’m happy.”

“No tips today, but overtime work and no one asking for my number,” Wanda said. “I’m _delighted_.” Dockside didn’t get lots of custom during the off season, so this particular adventure would put them ahead for the month, Steve’s complaints or not. Wanda led the boys outside, breathing in the clean, crisp fall air. It was cooling off rapidly as it got dark, and there were already lights up everywhere.

“I’m going to get overtime, too,” Peter said. “We’re bringing in Christmas trees this weekend, at the greenhouse.”

“Ug.” Wanda didn’t mind the holiday -- well, not _anymore --_ but Peter always smelled like pine sap for days after spending the weekend hauling and fluffing and setting up the display. “I heard a rumor, today.” She looked up at Sam. “Your sister texted me, said you had some interesting news?”

“Somehow it don’t seem fair, you an’ my sister teamin’ up against me,” Sam said, but he didn’t really seem too upset about it. “Got accepted at ODU for the counseling program,” he said. “I’ll start up with the spring classes, right after New Year’s. And they’re gonna credit me some of the classes I got with the military so I don’t have to take like basic math and shit.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Wanda cheered, using both of her taller companions to lift herself up and swing like a little kid.

“I’ll tell ya,” Peter said, over her head, “I don’t miss school _at all._ No one grades me on how well I shelve mulch, or stack terra cotta.”

Wanda chewed her lip. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “not, you know, school, school, but there’s some online classes, and a few seminar classes, to get the Master Gardener cert. It’s not quite the same thing, you know, just… I’m interested in it. It’s not _real school_.”

Peter might not miss school, and they both made the best decisions they could, the way the money had gone, and the fact that neither of them had been diligent enough in high school to get offered scholarships. It certainly didn’t bother her when she chatted with her online friends, most of whom had student loans to pay off, and they weren’t making much more money than Wanda was, who, at least, didn’t have _that_ to worry about.

“Yeah?” Sam said. “You should do that. You’re a wiz with plants, everyone knows that.”

“Plants are easier than people,” Wanda said. “Most of the time.” The smell of apple cider and hot cocoa reached her, and she turned the whole group in that direction. “Ohhh, chocolate.”

“Well, you’ve lost her now,” Peter commented, and then laughed, blocking her with his forearm as she tried to poke him.

Sam laughed and let go of Wanda’s hand so she could better attack her brother, and went to stand in line for the hot chocolate.

Once Peter actually started to run, Wanda backed off. “No point,” she said, dusting her hands. “Nobody can catch Peter. I was always better at _hiding_ , he was better at running.” She watched her breath plume in the air, and snuggled relentlessly up against Sam’s side. She watched Peter, who’d run into -- and nearly over -- one of his friends and stopped to chat. “Pete said, if you wanted, after we get out of here, we could all watch a video or something… and uh… I could have a _sleep over,_ if we weren’t too obnoxious about it.” She put extra stress on the word, because Peter had been blushing and flustered, and if he hadn’t been so obviously embarrassed about it, she might have been angry that Peter thought she needed _permission_. But it was his house, too.

“Yeah?” Sam pulled her in a little tighter. “I’d like that.” He leaned down to kiss her, and what started as a quick peck on the lips turned into another, and then a longer one, and then someone behind them was clearing their throat so they’d notice that the line had moved again.

Wanda could feel her neck heating, that quivering feeling in her scalp, and she gave the guy a quick apologetic shrug, shuffling forward in line. “I’d, uh, like that, too.”

***

Sarah didn’t even bother to glare at him, or cross her arms, or do anything so obvious. She raised one eyebrow and went back to mixing dough. She was like a housecat, she could just disapprove obviously, without anything aside from a slightly stiff spine. “Run that by me again, Sam Wilson?”

“I just thought you all might like to spend the holiday in North Carolina, an’ I could stay here and watch the house.” He tried to look innocent, knowing damn well she’d already seen through him.

“Is it goan tap-dance?” Sarah asked. In the other room, Dion was banging on a plastic bowl with one of Sarah’s wooden cooking spoons. “You know Montell’s sister likes you jus’ as well. You don’t have to watch the house.”

“Sure, but the holidays are busy enough without tryn’a find space for one more dude. Just sayin’, y’all g’on an’ have a good time.”

“I don’t think I’m gonna have a good time, if I’m worryin’ about you rattling around this place like a single peanut in a can,” Sarah said. “We went through this when you came home. You know we’ll set you up so you don’t gotta share a room, if you need some down time.” They had, they really had gone all out for him, several years, trying to be supportive when Sam didn’t want to do anything over the holidays except read the stack of letters from Riley’s family, or page through their old pictures, pretending, somehow, that his wingman, his best friend, had come home.

Would have been easier, in those days, if Riley had been the one who had gone home to his family and his girl. And Sam had been the one left behind.

But while Sam expected he’d lift a glass or two to Riley’s memory, and probably indulge in at least a little time with his old memory box, he had an altogether different motive for wanting to be left alone this year. “I’m gon’ be fine,” he told Sarah. And then, because the expression on her face hadn’t changed even an iota, he sighed and gave in. “Don’t ‘spect t’be alone too much.”

“You gonna do right by that little bitty girl, Sam? She’s a good kid,” Sarah said. It was about as close to his sister was going to get to asking him if he was planning to put a ring on it. They really hadn’t been dating long enough for _that_ but it was by far the steadiest relationship Sam’d had since before he’d even gotten his wings and started a love affair with a fighter jet.

Sam blew out his breath at her. “Tryin’ to treat her like she wants me to,” he said. “Kinda hard when we can’t get no time alone, though.” He raised his eyebrows at Sarah pointedly.

Sarah beamed at him. “See, that’s all you had to say,” she scolded. “And I’m even nice enough that I’ll suggest Mama might want to come with us, spend the holidays with her grandkids. You can keep an eye on her house, too. And feed that yappy little dog of hers, I don’t want t’ drive down to the Casper’s place with that little ball of shivers an’ anger in my car again.”

Mama’s dog, a chihuahua that wore a variety of ugly knit sweaters, was like her own baby, so Sam wished his sister good luck in getting Mama to leave the dog behind, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be running down the street a few times a day to walk a rat on a string.

But if it helped his cause... “Yeah, I can do that,” he agreed. “You set it up with her, and I’m on board. That mean you’ll do it?”

“Don’t you leave me a sink full o’ dishes when I get home, an’ I’ll make it happen,” Sarah said. She started scooping out peanut butter cookies onto the tray, then leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’m happy for you. It’s nice to see you… looking forward to things, and trying to be sly, and… I know, you’ll always miss him, but we were missing _you_.”

Sam wrapped his arms around Sarah’s waist while she was messing with the cookie batter and couldn’t shoo him off. “Thanks for takin’ care of me,” he said. “I know I’s messed up, but I’m gettin’ better.”

“You are,” Sarah told him. “Sometimes it’s just the waiting to get better that’s the hard part. It never happens as fast as we want it to. Or --” she shrugged “--it happens too fast. You look around and feel bad that you’re livin’ your life, and… well, you know he’d never want that for you. So you _live_ , and you hold onto the memories, but you just remember, the living have more need of you.” She sighed. “Now get off me, I got cookies to bake.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of people asked about Nat and Steve's wedding over the last year or so... so finally, here it is!

“November is a hard time for flowers,” Wanda said. Steve had lifted the elaborate braided crown off Nat’s fiery red hair and handed it to Wanda to “do something” with it, right before he kissed Nat like his life was depending on it. “But I think I did okay.” A few of the blossoms were woven directly into Nat’s hair, and Steve was going to crush them entirely, if he kept up with cradling his new wife’s head like that.

The wedding itself had been short, mostly the legal stuff. No fuss, no muss: a judge that no one ever expected to see again read off a few short words and signed his name, and Mr. and Mrs. Rogers left the building, hand in hand, their few witnesses trailing behind them and blowing soap bubbles, because the courthouse wouldn’t allow anything like rice or even bread crumbs.

Bucky -- and probably Clint -- had tied a whole ton of old, worn shoes to the back of Steve’s motorcycle, and they all laughed as Nat hitched up her embroidered wedding dress to climb on the back of the bike behind him.

Nat paused, looked back at them, and then threw her flower bouquet into the air. Wanda wasn’t ashamed to admit she dropped the flower crown in an effort to catch the bouquet, but she missed it.

“ _Tony_!” Wanda grumbled, smacking him around the shoulders.

Tony pretended to cringe. “It came _right at me_ ,” he protested. “What was I supposed to do, jump out of the way?”

“You’re hopeless,” Wanda said. She gathered up the remains of Nat’s headpiece, letting the underworkings dangle from one finger. “What do you need with luck in love?”

“I dunno,” Bucky said, coming up behind his boyfriend and nipping the shell of Tony’s ear. “He needs all the luck in the world, or he’s gonna wind up stuck with _me_.”  

Steve got Nat’s helmet on her, taking advantage to kiss her a few more times. “See you at Aldo’s,” he told the rest of the group.

“Forty minutes isn’t enough time for what you got in mind, Rogers,” Bucky called, and they all hooted as Steve turned beet red.

Nat buffed her nails against the top of her wedding dress, dotted with tiny blue embroidered flowers. “Do not make it a _challenge_ , Bucky.”  

“Just helpin’ you out,” Bucky said.

Sam took the flower crown out of Wanda’s hands and set it carefully on her head. “There. Goes nice with your hair.”

Wanda twisted around, trying to catch her reflection in the big windows in front of the courthouse. They were all in their fancy dresses and suits -- Bucky’s was a rented tux that fit poorly over his shoulders and was straining at the seams around those biceps -- and they looked like just what they were, a wedding party. Wanda tipped her head so she didn’t poke Sam in the eye with the sheaf of wheat that added a harvest flourish to Nat’s crown.

“We look good together,” she said, meaning the whole group, but then Sam caught her eye in the reflection and she became a little more aware of how she fit in the curve of his arm. His smile, with that little gap in his teeth, warmed her even more than his arm.

“Damn right, we do,” Sam said. He bent to kiss her, ignoring Bucky and Tony cheering them on. “We goan change before dinner, or hit the restaurant in our Sunday best?”

“Sunday best,” voted Tony. “I don’t get to see Bucky this dressed up... ever. I’m going to take advantage of every moment.”

“I hate this monkey suit,” Bucky complained, tugging at his bow tie. “But I got th’ thing on contract until tomorrow, so might as well. Nat’ll probably want pictures, anyway.”

“Nat, hell,” Clint said, coming up from the other side, looking utterly ridiculous in a second-hand jacket, his jeans, and a deep purple dress shirt. If he’d even started the day with a tie, he’d lost it by that point. “ _Lucky_ wants to see pictures of everyone.” Despite Clint’s best efforts, neither the courthouse nor the restaurant had relented at all about the idea of the dog joining them.

“Pretty sure your dog cares about only one thing in this wedding,” Peter piped up.

“Cake.”

Wanda wasn’t sure who said it first, but it was true. Lucky’s predilection for eating, well, everything, was well known.

“I don’t know,” Wanda said, spreading her hands over her dress, pale blue and riding low on her bosom (it was held in place with half a roll of double-sided tape and a safety pin and a lot of prayers). “I kinda like dressing up.” She would, however, be happy to get seated and maybe kick her shoes off under the table. The dress was -- like all dresses -- way too long on her, and she was wearing almost four inches of heel just so she didn’t look like a child.

Sam wasn’t wearing a tux, but he had let Wanda pick out a new tie for him to wear with the suit he usually wore to church, an abstract swirl of maroon and the same blue as her dress, so they almost matched. “Dressed up is fine with me,” he said, pulling Wanda back against his chest. “We best get movin’, if we want to be there to heckle when they come in.”

“Least it’s November,” Peter said. “If it were warmer, Steve’d be takin’ Nat somewhere private and bend her over that bike.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Peter, that’s crude--” Wanda’s fingers itched to throw something at her brother, but the only thing close to hand was the flower crown, and the poor thing had already been abused enough.

“He’s not wrong,” Bucky murmured, and Wanda made a disgusted noise in her throat.

“Come on, let’s _go_.” Wanda grabbed Sam’s hand and dragged him toward the parking lot. It wasn’t that she hadn’t figured out that her friends had sex, but she wasn’t very good at making explicit statements herself; it always made her blush and feel awkward and wrong-footed, and there were certain people that she didn’t really want to think about naked. Tony, for instance. He was such a little cinnamon roll, she was just very uncomfortable with the whole idea.

***

The back room in the Italian place was richly decorated, all dark, warm colors and low lights. Exposed brick walls and mahogany trim made for a cozy atmosphere. The place was filled with the smells of tomato and cream, pasta, garlic, and espresso. They’d barely sat before their waiter brought out a tray of coffee, each one plated with a stir-stick of crystalized sugar.

Bucky was speaking to Steve in a low voice, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, pal,” he said. “Clint and Tony an’ I put this together for you. Just sit down, an’ relax. ‘Bout time you got yourself married. Don’t know how much longer Nat was gonna put up with you lollygaggin’ around.”

This, apparently, was the dinner. Their waiter, who introduced himself as Chris, had a limited menu memorized for them, an assortment of appetizers, three dinners, salads, and oil-grilled focaccia bread. Wanda seemed to take his clear delivery and snappy waiter’s outfit as some sort of personal challenge, and as he was taking everyone’s orders, she was mouthing them back, smiling as she had them all down word-perfect, too.

Sam put his hand on her knee, under the almost ridiculously long tablecloth, and squeezed gently. “You could just relax and enjoy the dinner,” he suggested, teasing.

“Bad habit,” she apologized. “He just looks so… nice.”

“Ain’t bad,” Sam protested. “Kinda cute, really. Just thought you could do with a night off.” He kissed her cheek. “It does look nice here. Maybe we should make Bucky have a dress-up night for Dockside.” He grinned. “That’d be somethin’, wouldn’t it?”

The waiter poured glasses of wine, house chianti and chardonnay. Wanda picked up a wide-bowled glass and cradled it in her hands before taking a long sip. “I can’t imagine it,” she said. “There’s always sand on th’ floor and people come in to eat straight from the water.” Casual dining, that was Dockside. _Exceptionally_ casual.

Steve and Nat were kissing again up at the head of the table, and while Steve’s ears were blazing red, he didn’t seem like he was going to let her up to breathe any time soon. Bucky snapped a few dozen pictures with his cellphone, including one of Peter threatening to dump a glass of ice water on them both.

“It’s good,” Sam said, nodding at the lovebirds. “They’re happy. It’s nice.”

Wanda reached for her glass again, absently taking several large swallows. As soon as she put it down, the waiter was right back there, filling it up again.

“Can’t believe Tony bogarted the bouquet,” Wanda complained. She picked through the breadbasket and lavished butter all over a dinner roll. She licked melting butter off her fingers. “It’s nice, tho, gettin’ someone else to wait on _me_.” She wiggled around in her chair and then her feet came up and draped over Sam’s legs, her bare heels rubbing over his thigh as she got settled.

Sam raised his eyebrows at her, because she wasn’t usually that brave right out where anyone might see. Though the tablecloth was long enough that not too many people _could_ see, he guessed. “I imagine so,” he answered. Under the table, his hand curled around her ankle, rubbing lightly at the spot he knew ached when she’d been on her feet a good while. Not that they’d stood up very long today, but Sarah had always told him that wearing heels made the ache of standing just that much worse.

Wanda made a soft, groaning sound and flexed her toes. “Mmm, that’s nice,” she said. At the head of the table, Bucky was going on, and on some more, about Steve, and their pretty much lifelong friendship.

“Those two,” Wanda said, shaking her head. “Used to think Bucky wanted to date _Steve_.”

“Pretty sure he did, at least for a while. I mean... Look at ‘em. They’d’a been a cute couple, too, if Steve wasn’t straight.” Sam took a few sips of his wine and went back to massaging Wanda’s feet under the table.

“ _Tragically_ straight,” Bucky added, obviously hearing them.

“Only a tragedy for _you_ ,” Nat said, wrapping her arm almost protectively around Steve’s waist.

“Well, I got a lot of practice admiring from afar,” Bucky said, putting on his lovelorn expression and batting his eyelashes sorrowfully.

“Why’s he gotta have eyelashes like that? Not even fair,” Wanda complained.

“Ain’t not a thing wrong with yours,” Sam said firmly, though she was right that Bucky had crazy long eyelashes.

Tony tugged Bucky back down beside him. “You’ll just have to make do with me,” he laughed. Then he pointed down the table at Sam. “Your turn, Wilson! Spill some beans!”

“Beans, beans I got,” Sam promised. He wasn’t going to stand up to talk, though. They were a small enough group, and Wanda’s feet in his lap were warm and comfortable. “Y’all know I met these two assholes in high school, right? I was a grade ahead of them, but they been around longer. I was the new kid, that year.

“Don’t rightly remember exactly how we met, but we’d only just started hangin’ around together, an’ for some reason they thought it’d be a grand idea t’ take me to fuckin’ Rocky Horror one weekend.

“An’ it’s _high school_ , so I only had the vaguest idea what I was in for. They show up to pick me up, an’ this one--” He pointed at Bucky. “--is wearin’ makeup looks like Tammy Faye herself spackled it on ‘im. An’ _this_ one--” Sam swung his arm until it pointed at Steve, which was a little more difficult than it ought to have been, considering he was still on his first glass of wine. “-- _this_ one is wearing a dress. Not just any dress, mind you. Black spandex, so tight you could count th’ knobs on his spine, ‘cause this was before he went and got huge on us.”

“There was another knob you could see, too,” Bucky put in, smirking, and the table laughed and hooted while Steve’s ears and neck turned bright red. Nat was leaning back in her chair, eyeing her new husband as if she was trying to picture it.

“I’m gonna take your word for that part; I didn’t look,” Sam said tartly. “But it was a black dress with these zippers all over it, an’ it was so short that he hadta be wearin’ briefs or nothin’ under it, ‘cause boxers would’a been too long, you know what I’m sayin’?

“And they show up at my house to pick me up for this, and my mama answers the door, my good, God-fearin’ mother, and there’s these two clowns on the step, dressed like somethin’ out of a burlesque, tellin’ her they’re come to take her son off.

“But Mama, she don’t even bat an eye. She just hollers for me to come out my room, and here I come like a damn fool, just dressed like normal in my jeans an’ all. I ‘bout _died_ when I saw them there. But I wasn’t ‘bout to back down, neither, so I head out, an’ before Mama can even shut the door, Rogers here is pullin’ a lipstick outta his damn _purse_ \-- ‘cause of _course_ he gotta purse t’ go with that itty bitty little dress, ain’t nowhere for him to _put_ a wallet -- an’ aimin’ it at my face.

“An’ Mama, well, she just gives me this _look_ , and then she says, ‘You ladies have a nice time, now,’ and shuts the door right in my face.”

“Well, of course you had to have cherries on your cheeks, Wilson,” Bucky said. “Couldn’t have been more obvious you were a virgin!”

There were some low-pitched whoops, and Bobbie piped up, “not for much longer, I heard tell.”

Wanda shifted again, her foot nudging just to one side of Sam’s thigh, toes wiggling against his suit pants. “Oh, I’ve got a story that might embarrass Steve,” she said. “Only ‘cause he doesn’t like people pointing out how _heroic_ he is.” She peered into her wine glass, which was about a third down, shook her head. “Should I tell?” She ran her finger around the rim of her glass suggestively.

“Absolutely!” Tony was leaning forward, his own wine glass cupped in his hands.

Sam shifted a little against her toes, but nodded his agreement. “Let’s hear it.”

“Well, I’ve known Steve my whole life,” she said. “He grew up right next to our mom’s place, same trailer lot. We were all ‘lot kids together. And there’s no _yard_ , you know. We all have our little rented patch of dirt, and some grass tries really hard to grow there, but there’s not any flowers. So, I can’t be more than five or six, and there’s an empty lot all the way in the back, no trailer there, but there’s a bunch of dandelions and buttercups and clover, you know, weedflowers. I go out there one day--”

She paused to push around a bit of pasta on her plate and ate it. “And it’s been rainy, so the ground’s all soft.” Wanda glanced at Steve. “And a nice bunch of jonquils had bloomed, so I go to pick them, and something slithered right around my ankle.

“I look down, and there’s this snake, a snake! About three feet long and it’s wrapped around my leg, pretty much from my ankle all the way to my knee. I have stepped on it, right --” she demonstrates with her fork, pressing her fingers right behind the tines “-- right here. Pinning it to the ground.”

“What am I supposed to do? It’s going to bite me if I try to get away from it. Right now, it can’t move… not at all. It unwraps from my leg, but it’s all squirming and hissing at me. And I’m _terrified_. I try stepping harder, like it’s a worm and I could squish it, but the ground is all soft and the more I push down, it just sinks in.”

Wanda looked over at Steve. “You remember this?”

Steve shook his head. “No, I honestly don’t.” He made a rueful face. “I don’t suppose I did something sensible like yell for your mom.”

Even Tony, who’d known Steve for less than a year, snorted at that.

“You did not,” Wanda said, her words careful and precise. “I’m yelling and crying -- what, I’m six! -- and here comes Steve, he’s like… what, nine or ten? Couldn’t have been any older than that, because he moved over to Dockside, after his… well, after. With a garden hoe in one hand and an _axe_ in the other! Like some itty bitty viking.”

“And he gets the hoe on the snake’s neck, right over my foot,” Wanda said, “and he gets me to hold the handle, which I don’t want to do, I just want to go home now, please, thank you, I have had enough of snakes. But he talks me into it, just as calm as can be, even though I can tell he’s just as scared as I am. So I held the handle down, keeping the snake pinned, and Steve uses this wood-chopping axe to cut its head right off!”

“Turns out, this is like one of those copperhead snakes, venom-- is it venomous or poisonous if it bites you and you die?

“Venomous,” Tony supplied.

“So, yeah, it’s a bitey snake,” Wanda said. “Not enough to hurt an adult, aside from make ‘em sick, but probably enough that it might have killed me. Or Steve. So, yeah, that’s my Steve story. He saved my life, when we were little bitty. Didn’t your dad yell at you, for puttin’ his axe back in the tool shed, with blood still on it?”

“Yeah, _that_ , I remember,” Steve said.

Sam squeezed Wanda’s foot under the table. “Well, thank God for Steve Rogers, then,” he said, knowing the others were going to mock him for being sappy about his girlfriend, and not caring in the slightest.

“Well, he wasn’t always smooth,” Bucky said, and launched into a retelling -- probably embellished -- of Steve and Nat’s first meeting.

That Sam was exceptionally distracted from, since Wanda had moved her foot again, and finding something interesting there, because the ball of her foot stroked over the vee in his pants, and then she _pushed_ , just a little just enough, exactly the right pressure. “Hey there,” she said, low, looking at him over the rim of her wine glass.

Sam grinned at her, and watched her eyes flick down to his mouth. “Hey, yourself.” He brushed his knuckled down her cheek. “How you feelin’?”

“Warm,” she said, and her toes flexed, long and lithe and how the hell was she doing that? It was almost, but not quite, like she was feeling him up through his slacks, her toes rubbing against him, and the whole time the expression on her face didn’t change a bit.

That was... that was definitely _not_ something Wanda would normally do. “Just how much wine have you _had_?” he wondered.

Her smile was rich and slow, like a dollop of whipped cream. “Just one,” she said. As if to prove her point, she finished the last two swallows and put the glass down. Her foot moved again, sliding up his length, and then her toes squeezed light, when she got to the head. “You don’t like it?” Her voice dropped low, secretive, but with a hidden laugh, like she knew exactly how _much_ he liked it, and was just teasing him.

Sam watched the waiter sneak up behind Nat to refill her glass while she was distracted filling in some shade of Bucky’s story. _Just one, right._ “You know I like it, baby. After dinner, I’ll take you home and show you just how much I like it.”

“Mmmm,” she said, stroking him again, and his slacks were getting awful tight. “I think I’m getting the idea.” She twisted her jaw for just a moment, and-- the _hell_! Her toes slipped into the flap of his fly and she managed to get his zipper about a third of the way down, opening some breathing room.

Sam glanced down the table to make sure no one else was paying attention to them. “Don’t you _dare_ make me ruin my suit, now,” he warned.

“Little seltzer water, you’ll be _fine_ ,” she said, spearing a cherry tomato out of her dinner and rather deliberately rubbed it in the cheese sauce before licking it into her mouth. She managed that serious, sensual expression for about ten seconds before she started giggling, her cheeks going pretty-pink as she clutched her napkin in front of her mouth and snickered.

Sam couldn’t resist a laugh of his own, she looked so damn cute and her little giggle was infectious. “You’re gonna be the death of me,” he told her, lips curving in an unwilling smile.

Wanda’s case of the drunken giggles _did_ draw attention, and her feet slid out of his lap as she positively turned poppy red and refused, utterly, to explain what was so funny.

“Wanda should drink wine from a sippy cup,” Nat said, matter-of-fact. “She has no tolerance.”

Wanda continued to giggle, and flipped her middle finger up at Nat. “I’m fine, I’m just _fine_ ,” she protested, but Sam noticed that she reached for her water, the ice long since melted, instead.

The conversation washed around them again, and then two waiters brought out the wedding cake. Sam recognized Steve’s work immediately; his artistic touch was all over the cake, four layers high, dotted with cherries and mint sprigs, the white icing delicately painted like it was china, a blue pattern of leaves and abstract flowers that had a distinctly foreign feel. The top of the cake was a nest of mint, cupping two lovebirds made from a spicy-smelling pastry, that peeked out from their perch.

It was a _lot_ of cake for a relatively small group of people, but then, Nat was famous for her appetite for dessert; maybe the plan was to have a lot of leftovers. Someone else clapped, and Sam joined in, and then everyone was applauding while Steve blushed and Nat stared, open-mouthed in surprise.

“Traditional Ukraine recipe,” Steve admitted. “I looked it up.” He smiled at Nat shyly. “You like it?”

“Steven,” Nat said, her voice shaking as she reached out and touched the little bird. “You made _korovai_? For me? For us?”

“I sure hope so,” Steve said. “I mean, the little test cake I made first was pretty good, but I don’t know how authentic it’ll taste.”

“It could taste like _ashes_ , and I would _love_ it,” Nat said, fierce. Her eyes were shining and Sam wasn’t even sure she noticed that she was tearing up.

“It’s Steve,” Bucky said, snapping pictures. “It _won’t_ taste like ash.”

“Be nice to me,” Nat said, “or you can’t have any.”

“We’re being nice,” Tony protested. “It’s gorgeous, Steve. Almost seems a shame to cut it.”

“Aw, hell no,” Sam protested. “I want me some cake.”

The whole top two layers were made from something that was more like a cinnamon bun than cake, covered with sweet cream glaze and smelling strongly of cloves, and each person got a sliver of that. The rest of the cake was more American traditional, frosty white and tasting like butter and sugar. The two cakes made a good pairing, and the group made short work of their slices. Even so, the staff at the restaurant was boxing up a _lot_ of cake.

“Should freeze well, to save,” Steve suggested. Nat smacked Tony’s hand when Tony suggested that it wouldn’t last long enough to need to be frozen, but everyone laughed, because they all knew it wasn’t a lie.

Everyone got at least one box to take home, and it wasn’t until they were getting ready to leave that half the party realized that they’d had quite a bit more wine than they’d remembered drinking. Even Nat staggered back a step.

Sam was ready to put a steadying arm around Wanda, who despite the water and cake had _definitely_ had more than one glass of wine. He glanced around the table to see who was affected, and Nat caught his eye. She raised an eyebrow and smirked, and the hand that wasn’t wrapped around Steve’s waist made a quick little motion in front of her stomach. Sam blinked, and then realized she was mimicking a zipper -- his was still half-open from earlier. He felt his neck go warm and quickly moved his suit jacket to hang in front of himself. It would have to do until he could discreetly zip up.


	10. Chapter 10

The movie Wanda had picked and thrown in the DVD player was boring. Supposedly a movie about an assassin, it should have been titled “George Clooney Goes to Coffee Shops” instead. She’d mostly picked it so that she had an excuse to invite Sam over. And so she could sit for a while and work up her nerve. Just because Peter had given her the go-ahead didn’t mean that she was ready for it. It was…

Okay, it wasn’t a _big_ step, it was only a medium step. It wasn’t even an irreversible step, although she supposed it might look that way from Sam’s point of view. And anyway, why was she thinking about an inevitable _when_ they broke things off, because that just seemed defeatist all the way around.

Sam was weirdly understanding about stupid things; Wanda’s panic attacks and Peter’s nightmares. The one time she’d had to roll out of bed when Peter woke up, screaming, and ended up sleeping in Peter’s room with him for half the night, Sam was only encouraging at breakfast. Had managed to be comforting without setting off all of Peter’s defensive posturing.

He’d even gotten Peter to talk about it, a little. How they’d waited one afternoon, for their mom to come walk them home from school, like she always did, and they’d waited and waited, but she never came. There’d been phone calls home from the school, but hadn’t gotten through. They’d been brought into the office to wait, and Peter had gotten impatient. He had dodged out of the office to run home -- even in grade school, Peter had always been running, everywhere.

He had been the one who’d gotten to their home and found Mom dead on the floor in the kitchen. She’d fallen off the stepstool -- Wanda had inherited all her lack of height from their mom -- and hit her head.

The police woman had tried to tell the twins that Mom hadn’t suffered, but Peter told her that was a lie. He’d _seen_.

Wanda shook herself out of the past. The movie was more than half over. George Clooney was still drinking coffee in a shop, and nobody had died.

“I… uh, have a proposition for you,” Wanda said, then had to restrain herself from smacking her hand over her face. “Proposal. _Not_ proposition.”

Sam immediately turned toward her; he probably wasn’t any more interested in the movie than she was. “Let’s hear it,” he said, smiling encouragingly.

“You know, we own this house,” she said, waving one hand around at the space. Their house was tiny, really. “Mom left us money, and we bought it outright, soon as we were eighteen. So, we don’t pay on it, just the insurance and taxes. It’s not too bad, really. We thought we’d be safer that way, if something happened-- you know, if Peter couldn’t work for a while, or I couldn’t, we wouldn’t be at too much risk of losing our roof.”

Sam nodded. “I knew you owned the place,” he says. “It’s got to be a load of relief, knowin’ you’ve got that.”

Wanda nodded. There’d been times, with Uncle, that she thought homelessness might have been better, but in the end, they’d both been too afraid to try to make a difference. Dad didn’t want them. Uncle didn’t want them either, but he’d at least let them stay.

“So, uh, I mean… it’s not much, really. But you’re here these days, more often than you’re not,” Wanda said. “An’ Pete, he actually… suggested it. So, he’s gotten over his… issue. He says. I’m not so sure, I think this is trying to work with the issue than against it, but you know, that’s the whole idea, right? But…” She twisted her fingers together, nervous. “I guess I’m… I don’t know what your arrangements are with Sarah, but she’s got all three kids stuffed in one bedroom, even though Dion sleeps with her most nights, so… would… uh. You like to move in?”

Sam stared at her for a long minute. “You-- Really?” He blinked a few times, like he was trying to clear dust from his eyes.

“Too soon?” Wanda wondered. “I mean, it was just an idea. I like having you here, and, you always talk about your living arrangements as Sarah’s house, and… I thought you might feel more like this was _your home_ , too.”

“Huh.” Sam didn’t take his arm from around her shoulders, but his free hand rubbed at his face meditatively. “I’d always figured my stayin’ with Sarah, that was only temporary. ‘Til I got through... everything.” He waved his hand vaguely, encompassing the trauma of Riley’s death and his own discharge from the military. “Always reckoned I’d find somethin’ else, eventually. But I’m... I help out a lot, you know? Watchin’ the kids after school, ferryin’ ‘em around places when Sarah can’t. I don’t wanna leave her in the lurch.”

“Lots of people do childcare without living with the family,” Wanda said, but her heart sank somewhere into her stomach. Of course he didn’t want to put his sister in a bad spot. Sarah had given up a lot to make sure Sam had all the support he needed, had taken care of him and given him a home, and she and Sam had only been dating a few months. “Don’t worry about it, it was only a thought.”

“Hey, now,” Sam said, gently. “I didn’t say no. I just gotta talk to her first, see if it ain’t gonna put her out too much, y’know? I want to, baby, I do. Just gotta be fair t’everyone.”

“Well, yeah, I get that,” she said. She turned her attention back to the movie. Still, no one was dead. It was astonishing how little _action_ was in this action movie. “This has got to be the most boring action movie I have ever seen.”

“I do b’lieve you’re right about that,” Sam agreed. He fished his phone out of his pocket with his free hand and started texting, one-handed. “When’s Peter due home?”

“Pretty soon. Or a couple more hours, I guess,” Wanda said. “He said something about maybe going to poker night with some of the guys from the garden center. They play for work-chits and petty cash. They clean him out, pretty regularly, but he keeps going anyway.”

“Hmm. If you ain’t sure, though, prob’ly shouldn’t fool around on the couch, huh? Maybe--” Sam’s phone rang. He looked down at it in surprise. “Hang on.” He thumbed it on. “Sarah?”

Sarah’s voice came through the phone loud enough for Wanda to hear. “Samuel Wilson, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Uh? What--”

“You _text_ me like you’re checkin’ on the schedule? Somethin’ this big? And what the hell are you checkin’ with _me_ for, anyhow? Don’t you know what the hell you want?”

“Course I do,” Sam said. “I just figured, what with the kids--”

Wanda’s eyebrows went way up, she could feel them practically disappearing into her hairline, badly enough that she actually scrubbed her hand over her face to put them back where they were supposed to be. Stupid eyebrows. “Should, I, uh… give you a minute?”

“I’ll just...” Sam unwrapped his arm and hauled himself to his feet, heading toward the garden door. “Sarah, I don’t-- If you’d let me get a word in edgewise, maybe I’d be able to explain...”

Wanda shooed him out, trying not to listen. It wasn’t her business, not really. Not yet. She told herself very firmly not to eavesdrop. The movie was still really boring, but at least Clooney had a gun in his pocket now. Maybe someone would get shot. Eventually.

Sam came back in about fifteen minutes later, phone tucked into his pocket and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “Sorry ‘bout that. Sarah read me the _entire_ riot act.”

“You missed the only actual gunfight in the whole movie,” Wanda told him. The credits were rolling on the screen.

“Yeah? Who died?”

“Pretty much everybody,” Wanda said. “Clooney, especially. They shot him, and then he drove his car into a river.”

“Huh.” Sam looked thoughtfully at the scrolling credits. “Sorry I missed it, I guess.”

“You shouldn’t be,” she said. “It was still boring. Like, he didn’t even die with any good dramatic lines. Or even cryptic ones. I don’t know who cleared this script to be produced, but they probably smell like moth balls. What did Sarah have to say?”

She chewed her lip. It still probably wasn’t any of her business.

“She, uh... To boil it all down, she pointed out that your house is only ‘bout a mile down the road from hers, an’ it wasn’t like I was thinkin’ of moving all the way to Kansas. I dunno why she picked Kansas, you’d have to ask her.”

Wanda giggled. “Surrender, Dorothy,” she said, between giggles. She couldn’t have said what was so funny about it, except that Sam really didn’t seem like the sort of person who’d be happy in the midwest. She knew she wouldn’t be; dry and flat and far from the ocean, didn’t seem like a place she could call home.

Sam smirked a little. “She also said I was even dumber than she thought -- I’m paraphrasing -- if I didn’t take you up on that offer. I’m pretty sure she’s emptyin’ my dresser into my duffle bag for me right now, as we speak.”

“You’re _not_ dumb,” Wanda protested, hotly. “You’re… _considerate_. You’re a good man, Sam Wilson.” She bunched up her fists, imagining storming down the street to yell at Sarah for calling her brother names.  

Sam reached out and caught her wrists, tugging her up off the couch and into his arms. “I’m glad you think so, ‘cause you’re stuck with me, now.”

Wanda let her arms go around his neck, tugging him down for a kiss. Somewhere in the last few minutes, her heart had moved back in her chest where it was supposed to be. “I think I can live with that,” she said, then gave him a sly look. “So long as we’re not _actually_ naked, Peter probably won’t say anything if we’re making out on the sofa. Or… the bedroom’s just a step down the hall.”

“Probably be bad form to traumatize my roommate on the first night I’m here,” Sam said, smirking. “Let’s take this back to your bedroom.”

“ _Our_ bedroom,” Wanda corrected, smiling into the kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's the final chapter for our Sandbridge stuff!
> 
> Wow, this AU's been posting for sixteen months now. I'm sure we'll revisit Sandbridge from time to time -- don't forget, we're taking prompts for this AU on our tumblrs. ([Tisfan](https://tisfan.tumblr.com) and [27dragons](https://27dragons.tumblr.com/)) so if there's anything you want to see, know about, etc, please feel free to hit us up.
> 
> Starting next week, in this Tuesday/Thursday slot, we'll start posting our new novel, Indispensable, which is a historical romance style story... so, we hope to see you all there, and thanks for cheering, reading, commenting, kudo'ing, and generally being a really great audience.


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